


50 percent chance

by Unpopularsoftshipper



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Adult Dipper Pines and Mabel Pines, Alpha Mabel, Alpha Pacifica, Alpha Wendy, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Beta Bill, Beta/Omega, Bill Cipher is Trying, Bill Cipher is a Jerk, Bill Cipher-centric, College Student Dipper Pines, Confident Dipper, Courting Rituals, Declarations Of Love, Dipper Pines Is In Denial, Dipper is defensive and so is Bill, Dramatic Bill Cipher, Human Bill Cipher, Idiots in Love, Lack of Communication, M/M, No Smut, Omega Dipper Pines, Omega Verse, Scents & Smells, William and Bill are cousins, all of them are in college, also best friends, at least young adults, bill cipher is not insane, but sexual tension i guess?, dipper is lowkey a genius but emotionally stupid, for once lol, he's only studying business to rule the world, literally only punching an alpha jerk, meaning no demon stuff, no one is underage, not very political tho, slightly animalistic traits, there are some parallels between misogyny and omega oppression and dipper is woke, there is a bit of violence but nothing really explicit or gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23554234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unpopularsoftshipper/pseuds/Unpopularsoftshipper
Summary: Bill Cipher was your charming beta who would rule the entire nation and world at some point. He was a master in dissuading tension, but he also knew how to stay away from trouble that didn’t involve him. Interrupting a fight, or what was becoming a couple’s fight, had nothing in it for him. Why would he interject? He only did shit when there was something of his interest in line.“No need to get violent, my friends” he found himself saying, despite all of his self-control and his own troubled and indifferent conscience. In a second, he was already next to the pair, giving the alpha and omega enough distance for them to not snap at him either.The story where one fight gets Bill permanently hooked on Dipper Pines, and soon both start to realize what is the real meaning of being in love and how scary it can get.
Relationships: Bill Cipher/Dipper Pines
Comments: 16
Kudos: 105





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! I finished this during quarentine so no need to worry about the updates.  
> This is of course a omegaverse and surprisingly I wrote no sex at all, wow. It's mostly about complex feelings and I really hope I was able to express myself correctly. Also, I curse when narrating so if you are not into that...
> 
> English is not my first language. I had a friend correcting my grammar, but if you find any typos or something that doesn't make sense, feel free to point them out. 
> 
> Enjoy!

From where he was standing, Bill could feel, _smell_ , the overpowering scent of an angry alpha trying to force people into submission. Bill despised alphas in that sense: they were full of themselves and had the physical advantage to bend others to their will, which was abusive in his opinion. Usually, however, alphas avoided making such displays of power in public, it was considered hot headed and cocky when they pulled shit like this, and the only exception to the rule was if their mate was being a particular pain in the ass (a brat, yeah, that’s the word) and wouldn’t obey them or keep quiet. Which, even with Bill’s very grey moral scale, was still not justification enough. 

“You can’t do this to me” the commanding voice threatened, eyes focused on a smaller frame and body almost covering the other person completely, like a shadow “We were going to be mates” 

The answer was loud enough to piss the alpha more, because this defiance was going to be something everyone walking by would find out. And alphas were not particularly fond of being publicly called out.

“You’re going too ahead of yourself, who told you I wanted to mate? We dated for what, a month? I don’t like possessive bullshit” 

“Three months” the other claimed, fangs starting to show out of anger.

“Wow, three months and you already feel entitled to me.” the omega (because that sweet, sweet smell could only belong to an omega) argued, laughing sarcastically “It only proves that this, as I said, isn’t working” 

The alpha snapped, probably because of the constant sass his ex partner was showing, or the fact that even someone as small and “submissive” as his ex was rejecting him. His big, angry hand slammed the wall behind the other guy, and this time his entire body was covering the omega, leaving him with no exit. Even then, Bill found himself surprised with the fact that there was no fear lingering in their scents.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you” the omega pressed “we are in public, the main act of the show...” he trailed off, still relaxed.

Maybe his words and the tone he was employing, all soft and persuasive, got him out of fights like this often, but Bill doubted it would work this time as he saw how the alpha was releasing very angry pheromones that could only be read as “Get away!”. Thank goodness Bill couldn’t care any less about alpha’s pheromones, or alpha’s feelings for that matter. 

Bill Cipher was your charming beta who would rule the entire nation and world at some point (mostly economically, though. He’s studying international business). He was a master in dissuading tension, but he also knew how to stay away from trouble that didn’t involve him. Interrupting a fight, or what was becoming a couple’s fight, had nothing in it for him. Why would he interject? He only did shit when there was something of his interest in line.

“No need to get violent, my friends” he found himself saying, despite all of his self-control and his own troubled and indifferent conscience. In a second, he was already next to the pair, giving the alpha and omega enough distance for them to not snap at him either. 

Surprisingly, only the alpha looked up at him. The omega, instead, rolled his coffee-like eyes. Or maybe, his eyes were as brown as the brownies he smelled like. How fucking delicious. All chocolate and pine trees, cocoa in a dark winter night.

“This is not your business, beta. Stay away”

“ _Oh-oh_ ” he sang playfully. The alpha was getting impatient and tense with his presence and there was nothing Bill hated more than being called beta as if he didn’t have a name, he knows it is supposed to be threatening but it only pisses him off more. “I think you made it my business when you started harassing an omega in front of the entire campus” 

“Beta...” he warned, impatient and offended at the interruption. 

The omega rolled his eyes again, he moved his head to the side in what could only be interpreted as a submissive motion: neck exposed. 

“Alpha” he called, getting the attention from both men back at him. The alpha raised a brow without knowing exactly how to interpret the turn of events. 

How ironic, Dipper Pines had told him to fuck off and now that they were fighting, and that another man was getting in the way, he felt stupid and scared of what the beta would do. The gesture of exposing his neck was, after all, a plea for the alpha to return to him. All of this stupid stubbornness, and he was finally submitting like he should. 

The alpha looked at Bill for a moment, and confused as well, he had his eyes glued to the scene and his feet glued to the ground, to make sure whatever the omega was thinking would end up nicely and the entire situation wouldn’t turn around on him later. Maybe, and probably, Dipper was acting, pretending to be completely calm so he could then attack the other, or leave during the night to avoid confrontation.

The alpha chuckled once the realization of Dipper’s request hit, at how ridiculous Bill looked standing there and interrupting a private matter. He lowered his head, entire body still towering over Dipper’s, and hid his nose against the delicious omega’s neck. 

In that moment, bodies almost glued together, the omega kicked hard with his knee against his alpha’s crotch. The alpha stepped back, surprised, but he wasn’t exactly hurting as the omega was a bit too small to actually reach the crotch area without making an extra effort.

The alpha growled at being played, so Bill growled back at him, walking in between the couple. He was taller than the omega, and slightly taller than the alpha as well. Even if the alpha seemed to have more muscle, Bill had fought impulsive alphas a thousand times before, and they always lose when their mind is not in the game. 

“You’re a fucking bitch, Dipper Pines!” the alpha growled, once again. At the attack, the omega purred ironically, as if he found it comforting or funny to be called those insults. He was provoking the alpha more, so Bill had to growl again, louder and clearer, to avoid the alpha launching forward. The alpha moved his head side to side, incredulous. “You’re really dumping me to jump right into another dick!” 

Dipper only looked unimpressed at the accusation. “I’m dumping you because you’re a shallow man with very conservative views on omega rights” he explained “Plus, your dick isn’t great enough to justify the mental exhaustion that means listening to you” 

Bill didn’t even let the comeback sink in, he just punched the alpha in the temple, doubting once Dipper’s cruel words sank, the alpha would peacefully step back with just a little sweet talking. Instead, after being hit, the alpha pushed Bill in response, with enough force to get his back to crash against the wall. At some point, Dipper had moved aside. 

With the knowledge of the youngest being safe and far, Bill launched forward once again and tried connecting his fist towards the temple a second time, for a knockout or at least to get the other’s vision blurry. 

The alpha dodged the blow and punched against the beta’s side.  
Even after getting the attack straight to his ribs, Bill couldn’t care any less, couldn’t even feel it because of the adrenaline running through his veins. Without noticing, he clenched his teeth, fangs showing. 

In an instant, the alpha had him against a wall, multiple blows landing on his jaw. Bill allowed the advantage over him even if it made him slightly light headed, until the punches gave away to a metallic taste flowing into his mouth, which was his cue to spit into the alpha’s face. 

The blood splattering all over left the alpha disoriented for a minute, and Bill took those sixty seconds to force his opponent’s head against the extinguisher at their side. To certify there was damage, he tugged at the other’s head again, and the sound it gave when crashing a second time was as hollow as Dipper had described his ex’s mind. 

At this point, the alpha was so dizzy, all heavy breathing, that it was quite easy to throw him to the ground with a push, and once on the floor, Bill straddled the man to give him back a broken lip. 

Nobody, until then, had stopped them or interrupted. The commotion around didn’t die down, though, and panting Bill reflected on what he had actually done once the guy under him whimpered. He just physically attacked another student inside campus, in the actual hallway to class. If they found him, or someone told on him, he was fucked.

Dipper seemed to agree, because he took his arm and pulled. Without noticing, Bill was being pulled away by Dipper Pines, walking towards God’s knows where. Leaving, thankfully, the crime scene.

Just a mean stare of his golden eyes was enough to get the crowd around them diffused. And Bill knew, without any doubt, that nobody would be telling on him.

They walked, silent, until Dipper stopped in front of the infirmary’s door. 

The omega didn’t say anything else, just stared at the door. Bill didn’t know what to say either, or if he had to say anything at all before receiving a “thank you”. The words, however, never came out of his companion’s mouth. 

“You’re bleeding” Dipper pointed out instead “Your lip is broken but nothing will happen because of a little blood, they will just disinfect it. However, you should hurry up inside because soon they will be bringing him in as well, maybe with a concussion, and could then connect the dots. Don’t forget to ask for painkillers, because this shit” he pointed at his body, sweaty “It’s going to hurt like hell tomorrow” 

Then, without waiting for an answer, Dipper walked out of Bill’s view. The small thing got lost in a crowd of students walking to their classes. Bill could only watch and enter the infirmary, with his mind rushing 100 times an hour.

What was up with him today? How could he carelessly start a fight for a guy he knew nothing about? Not even his name, until ten minutes ago. 

Bill Cipher was a smart man. He always did what could benefit him the most and wasn’t exactly a nice person. He did charity work, because money got sometimes boring and too much to manage, but he didn’t precisely love the part of helping people, or cared about others. Some people liked to claim that Bill had some sort of empathy problems, as his ex-girlfriend pointed out, and was too full of himself. 

They were right, which should be a blow to his self-esteem or a wakeup call, but Bill didn’t find it to be insulting. Just the mere truth. He was self-centered, furthermore, he was a bad guy who just happened to have charm and money, which made him even worse because he was the epitome of manipulative.

This time, however, the entire situation didn’t fit with his behavioral patterns. He offered help to an omega, came to his rescue even, and couldn’t get mad although the omega acted ungrateful. What was in it for him in the situation? Why did he intervened? 

Dipper Pines was probably the answer.  
Dipper Pines smelled crazy good, had Bill all giddy like a hormonal teenage boy once again, discovering the world of scents, ruts and mating. Dipper Pines didn’t fear an alpha, or a beta. It was most likely that Dipper didn’t even feel like he needed Bill’s help, which is why he didn’t thank him. Dipper Pines was the most interesting person he had seen in this college so far, and with that realization, Bill was not going to let this be their only interaction.

Dipper Pines was the subject of his curiosity, and was going to become his. 

——

Next time he found him, Dipper wasn’t alone. He was laughing at something a red headed alpha was saying, and his laugh caught Bill of guard because it was a little high pitched and over the top. Too scandalous with the completely controlled guy Bill assumed Dipper to be, but cute nonetheless. 

They were in the line in the cafeteria, and Bill observed shamelessly, sitting in a table a few meters away. His cousin William was ranting about some none-sense that excited him, so Bill allowed him to talk, even if it was pretty clear he wasn’t listening. 

After ten minutes without an interruption, Will pulled at Bill’s blond hair to call him out for not paying attention. Bill narrowed his eyes before ignoring him once again and staring back at Dipper, who was now sitting down.

A girl a tiny bit smaller than Bill himself approached the table, hand in hand with no other than Pacifica Northwest. If Bill could remember the gossip around them (because Northwest was a popular figure around campus and he sort of knew her), which he couldn’t, he could probably learn a bit about the subject of his attention.

“Could you please at least act like you care about what I’m saying?” William asked. He had bright blue eyes, incredibly blue like sapphires. Bill’s were so golden most people asked him if they were contacts, which they weren’t, his family only had some more animalistic genes than the majority of the population. 

William was also an omega, all soft and small and always stuttering when he crossed an alpha’s path. It wasn’t his fault at all, he was just shy, Bill guesses it has to do with being raised in a family where his older and annoying asshole of a brother was an alpha. That’s why Bill had gotten so good at kicking alpha’s asses, because he had to protect his cousin or else his parents would remove him from their will. William’s brother wouldn’t care any less about the younger Cipher, and Bill has been in charge of that task for as long as he remembers.

Bill had taken care of William since Will presented at 13 years old and back in private school. They went to a prestigious one that didn’t segregate them because of sub-gender, which was a terrible but common practice for high schools. Sure, it helped to avoid trouble, but then college became a jungle when most people didn’t really know how to interact with others different than them. 

Even if it was hard for him to accept, Bill did care for his cousin. William was easy to please, and Bill had been there for him every step of the way. He kicked the fuck out of Will’s first alpha girlfriend (who tried to punch him in front of everyone in class), he threatened to ruin the life of the jackass who took Will to prom and tried to force himself into the minor after, he bought him his first cigarette and was there to hug him when Will finished his heats, all hurting and wanting to go back to normal. He even got into a fight with William’s older brother, which got him sort of forbidden in that household unless they were hosting a business party.

In exchange, William was the only omega to stay in his life for so long. William even defended Bill whenever another omega complained about him or started rumors about his promiscuity (fake news, he didn’t have many formal relationships in highschool, but he did have a limited amount of fuck friends). William insisted Bill was a nice person, underneath all of his tough, vain and greedy exterior. Bill disagreed, but he didn’t have the heart to tell William.

“Bill Cipher, are you crushing?” his cousin teased, eyes following where Bill was evidently staring at Pines.

Bill didn’t deny it, he just shrugged. He couldn’t quite put a finger on why he was so interested on Dipper, but he could admit the omega was beautiful and maybe things like feelings could eventually get out of hand.

At that, Will only got excited. Bill had had a girlfriend, once, and other fuck friends like rich betas, omegas and alphas. He, however, wasn’t much of a romantic and had never been interested in any person from college since it started. Actually, William was scared his cousin’s type was rich and shallow superficial little things like Bill himself. 

“So, who is it? Pacifica Northwest? Wendy Corduroy? Dipper or Mabel Pines?” 

“Mabel Pines?” Bill asked, able to guess it would be the dark haired girl who held hands with Northwest and was currently making her brother giggle. 

Dipper had this adorable way of scrunching his nose between giggles, but when he openly laughed, the wrinkles weren’t there. It was cute.

Will shifted awkwardly in his seat “I mean, I would have never guessed if that’s what worries you. You seem more like the Pacifica or Wendy type” 

“Wendy?” 

“Oh yeah, she kicks ass” William explained “I’ve seen her step back from a fight with Tambry over Robbie. You see, Robbie sort of cheated on her with the other alpha and even if Wendy is an alpha herself, she’s so cold headed is impressive, didn’t start a fight over the omega like any other possessive fuck and-“ 

Will continued gossiping. He was always very impressed whenever he met respectful or just functional alphas. Bill and most of the Ciphers were betas, really powerful ones but betas at the end of the day, and William liked alphas even though nobody from the Cipher family really approved, not even the piece of shit that his brother was. Bill tuned out the rest of the story until Will came back to himself. 

“Well about Mabel...” he cleared his throat “I mean, she’s obviously dating Pacifica and soon both alphas will get their matching mate marks so I wouldn’t really catch feelings” Will tried to prevent him.

Bill, however, only cared about a little part of the speech. “An alpha? How come?” 

“Mabel?” Will asked, receiving a nod as his only answer “It’s quite common with twins really. One of them tends to be an alpha and the other an omega, or both betas. Alpha twins were almost a myth back in the day, and currently are practically an anomaly. Experts point out is some shit about equilibrium and dynamics, or evolution, I don’t really know” 

“So Dipper is an omega yet his sister is an alpha” Bill repeated. Maybe that was why Dipper couldn’t really be intimidated by alphas like Will understandingly was. Dipper had been raised with one who seemed nice enough, and knew most of them weren’t dangerous but full of threatening bullshit, full bark no bite. 

William raised a brow “Dipper Pines? He’s the most stubborn omega I have heard about, doesn’t have a very nice reputation around here. He’s dating an alpha, I think” 

“Was dating”

“Oh. I didn’t know you were updated about some trivial gossip” 

Sometimes Bill really wondered how his cousin could know everything about everyone. How could news travel so fast? 

“I saw them fighting” he confessed.

William’s eyes sparkled at the news, ready to ask a billion questions like always. “Now, now, did you really?” 

A nod.

“His alpha was quite hot”

“Not his alpha” Bill clarified, certain disdain in his voice and an uncomfortable pull of jealousy at his gut “And he was one of those possessive little fucks” 

“Not really little” William argued, dreamy tone in his voice. “Really, really hot”

“He wasn’t that hot. I’m objectively hotter”

“Yeah sure” William laughed.

Bill didn’t care if he sounded arrogant, he was pretty confident in the superiority of his looks “You’re my cousin and your opinion is biased” 

“You smell like shit”

“Only to family members” Bill argued “I’m sure I smell pretty attractive, I have never gotten complaints”

“Nobody says rude shit to betas”

“But Dipper Pines says rude shit to alphas” Bill grinned.

In return, William smiled wolfishly. His pointed fangs were a large and raw contrast against the plump lips. Average people would only get their fangs to look like that when they were hungry, angry or sexually involved. But average people weren’t as animalistic as the Ciphers, who permanently showed off their long pointed fangs, which grow even more when their feelings get out of hand.

Between the two of them, William’s face was softer and his lips were the perfect shade of pink. Bill in return had a bit more height and a tanner skin, which only made his blond hair look more golden under the light. They didn’t even look related, until you saw their predatory smiles and the dangerous shine in their eyes.

“You like him” William stated, without space for refusal or discussion “You like the whole ‘I-don’t-take-shit-from-anyone’ attitude, I know you” 

“Maybe I do, maybe I do not”

“Well, maybe I should warn you Dipper Pines is trouble” 

“Does that worry you?” the blond asked, finally fixating his attention on his cousin’s presence and face. “It shouldn’t, Bill Cipher has always been trouble” he finishes.

William laughed, in the obnoxious yet weirdly charming way he always did, that made people stop in their tracks to seek and admire. When Bill looked back to the Pines’ table, he found Dipper’s eyes staring back at him. 

——-

Bill’s opportunity to talk to Dipper came in the library, when he was struggling with an essay about international relationships and William was quietly sitting next to him, drawing triangles and other shapes in the corners of his notebook, which he was allegedly using for studying.

In the middle of a sentence, William hardly poked his cousin on the side. Bill almost hissed, but caught himself before letting any embarrassing sound out. He gave his cousin the stink eye, but Will didn’t care. He just whispered _“D I P P E R P I N E S”_ in a really obvious way that almost had Bill laughing.

If it weren’t because, of course, Dipper Pines was right in front of them searching for a book in the bookcase. He seemed focused on the task at hand. 

Bill Cipher was a smart man, indeed, but he also made terrible, terrible decisions when he was horny. Today, feeling stressed, he was just horny enough to stand up and walk towards his prey without thinking it twice. Or, even worse, without predicting Dipper’s possible reactions.

“Hey there” he saluted, startling Dipper a bit. The omega let out a little yelp, embarrassing enough that his ears reddened with shame.

It was, once again, the cutest shit ever. And his scent, all chocolaty but with a hint of pine tree, did incredible things to Bill’s stress. He felt suddenly soothed, relaxed, not even that horny anymore.

Dipper looked at him, up and down, unimpressed. He looked back at the books in front of him and didn’t say a word.

“Did nobody teach you manners?” Bill teased.

“Why, you gonna?” Dipper said, taking his words a little too seriously. 

Without allowing the sharp tone in Dipper’s voice to let him down, Bill continued the conversation: “No, but I guess it would have been nice to hear a ‘hi Bill’ or a ‘thank you, Bill’ from the last time we saw each other” 

“First time we saw each other” Dipper clarified, emphasis in “First”. Bill’s eyes followed the way Dipper’s teeth dragged over his lips, and how his tongue poked out to lick them when he finished talking. Staring like that may be borderline creepy, but none of them seemed too concerned about it. “Don’t think I didn’t notice your staring at the cafeteria” 

“Oh Dipper Pines” Bill sighed, dreamily and jokingly “You surely are too smart for your own good” 

Dipper raised an eyebrow, taken back by the compliment. 

“Yeah, I was watching you” Bill admitted, never ashamed of his honesty “It’s not a crime when you’re out there looking this good” 

And back at square one, he got Dipper’s indifference again as the omega turned his attention to the books. However, Bill knew he had Dipper listening, because Dipper’s fingers were playing with the borders of every single book, but his eyes were traveling only between two as if he was pretending to have his mind somewhere else.

He was smart, smart indeed.

“I guess you are not very fond of compliments?” 

“Not when they are this shallow, no. Or when the only purpose is to get me on my knees” 

“I mean” Bill persisted “I wouldn’t mind the view, pine tree, but more than a sexual thing, can’t you trust that I legitimately find you beautiful and smart?” 

“Do you say that to everyone after meeting them once?”

“No, only to you my dear”

At that, Bill got Dipper laughing. Dipper laughed that laugh of his that got the people around them shushing him. 

“How stereotypical of you, Bill Cipher. Surely knows how to get an omega to fall in love, hm?” he stated, sarcastically.

Apparently, Dipper was a sarcastic shit all the time. It was endearing, to say the least.

Bill shrugged, a big smirk on his face at the fact that he, at the end of the day, was making a conversation with the omega. 

“What are you majoring in?” Dipper asked, still pretended like he couldn’t care any less about this conversation.

The question got Bill’s chest warm all over, without noticing he was puffing it in what looked like an alpha mannerism of pride. It got another brow raised from Dipper, who looked at him with the corner of his eye, and then a little laugh. 

Bill felt happy knowing that Dipper was interested in learning about him: “International business”

“Oh wow, that’s exactly what I imagined you studying, or maybe admin but just something related to business”

“And what are you majoring in, pine tree?”

“Guess” Dipper challenged, finally taking two books in his arms and walking away. He didn’t even look back but knew well enough that Bill was following like an excited puppy.

With that in mind, Dipper walked through some of the other hallways, taking and leaving books without really caring about their content. Just to seem uninterested enough. 

Bill thought hard for a minute. He looked at the books in Dipper’s hands and read “physics” in one of them. It was a starting point at least. 

“Science?” 

“I’m double majoring, but you’re sort of right” 

“Anthropology?” 

“Mmm” Dipper shook his head in denial, he took a book about psychology in his hand and read the cover for long minutes. As if trying to give a hint.

“Science and psychology?” 

“Psychology is a science” Dipper chuckled “I’m majoring in engineering physics and English literature” 

That got him only stunned silence as an answer. For a minute Bill thought Dipper was playing him, he had to be playing: one major was already stressful in itself, demanding, tiresome, but Dipper was doing two? And one of them was all about numbers and the other all about letters? 

Bill was shocked with how much of an incredible achievement it was to already be doing two majors but, holy shit, in two things so different?! Maybe it was weird but his fascination with Dipper was immediately enhanced, and his own scent became one of pride and amazement, happiness. He had a good eye for mates that was for sure.

If Dipper was happy and relaxed around him seconds ago, he was not anymore. He turned back to look straight at Bill. “Why are you so happy? It’s me who is doing both majors, not you” 

“Is it not ok to be proud about other people’s achievements?” 

“You don’t even know me”

“But I want to. And it says a lot about me that the person who caught my eye is this ambitious.” 

Dipper understood it was supposed to be a compliment, but he didn’t like it. He felt as if Bill was already attaching them. Obviously, he noticed Bill had an interest (sexual, romantic, whatever), but he didn’t agree to the beta being so forward of already imagining them together or something.

The pride Bill felt for him, made Dipper feel like Bill already imagined himself as his mate. Dipper hadn’t even said yes to anything, he didn’t want another possessive guy showing him off to everyone as if Dipper was a pretty prize in small size. A trophy wife of some sorts.

“See, Bill, I want to get this clear just in case you need it in big black font.” he started, slightly threatening, and lifting his chin in challenge once again. “I’m not your mate and I’m not interested in one at the moment. You saving me was unnecessary, I could have done it myself. And you don’t know me, so don’t go around priding yourself in my achievements” 

Bill felt slightly annoyed at the turn of events. He hadn’t really misbehaved or done anything inappropriate, so Dipper’s anger was wrongly placed and definitely not justified (in his opinion at least). He blanked his eyes, knowing that may fuck his chances with the omega, but in return Dipper only grew a scowl in his face.

“Ok, ok” Cipher began, because he’s not idiot and he’s still interested, so he better calm down the pretty omega or his chances with him would go from 0 to -10 “What about friendship?” 

“Friendship?” Dipper repeated, suspicious.

Bill sighed heavily, pretending to be extra patient. “Yes, darling, friendship. You’re not ready for a mate? Doesn’t matter, we could be friends, really close friends if that’s what you would like” 

They were still in the library, trapped between two shelves too close to each other. Bill was going to take advantage of the space they were in, so he put both his hands to each side of Dipper’s body, really slowly, to make sure the omega would understand he didn’t have bad intentions.

The young Pines was still scowling, unsure. “First of all” he started, confronting as always “It’s not that I’m not ready, it’s just that I don’t want to mate with any random fucker that crosses my path.” 

“That hurts” Bill teased, pouting.

Dipper rolled his eyes annoyed but at least his anger was dissolving in the air. “And we can try and be friends, nice to each other at least, but no funny business”

“No funny business, no” Bill repeated, smirking. “We can be close without dating, you know?” he pressed, moving closer to Dipper, trying his chances. 

As he unfortunately predicted, Dipper didn’t laugh or even tensed because of his closeness, instead he gave Bill another annoyed glance. 

“Are you asking me to be fuck friends?” he asked out loud to Bill, but Bill knew that if he admitted to it, Dipper would definitely walk away permanently.

That’s why the beta looked at Dipper’s eyes and forced a more innocent, less hungry, smile. “Why would you suggest that, pine tree? I thought we agreed on friendship” 

The omega raised his brows, not believing a single thing that came out of the blond’s mouth. “You’re an idiot” he stated “A playful and stupid idiot, but we can be friends, sure. Hell, we can even be close friends, as you insist.” 

With that, Bill went speechless, and Dipper took his hand to push it away and walk with his two books back to where he came from. 

Bill couldn’t help but stare. He was definitely curious, intrigued, and really horny.

——-

“Hello, pine tree” Bill interrupted, sandwich in hand and a big nice smile plastered on his face. He didn’t even look at the table twice, just focused on Dipper, and sat between him and Mabel in what seemed to be their typical lunch spot.

Three pair of wide eyes blinked at him, the three women more curious than murderous, which was something Bill had seen them have in their stare whenever a guy got too close to Dipper, but well, they were alphas (still a bit overprotective in nature).

Bill didn’t want to try his luck, but he was still Bill Cipher and if he wasn’t a bit of a jerk, then he wouldn’t be a Cipher, would he? So he stretched his arm very evidently, and rested it in the back of Dipper’s chair.

The omega didn’t even care, he kept on playing with his chopsticks and noodles. Mabel gritted her teeth at the confident closeness with which the beta approached her brother, and Pacifica had to start the conversation to make it less tense.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Bill Cipher, biggest prick on planet earth” she said, sly smile on her face.

Truth be told, Bill didn’t really know Pacifica Northwest. She had been in the birthday party of a CEO’s son around a year ago, and he had crossed paths with her again when both went to a business trip in Cabos to discuss sustainable resources. It’s not like any of them knew precisely a single thing about the other’s life, but Bill felt certain comfort with the fact that she was one of his kind.

She was an alpha, a beautiful and strong woman, lots of charisma and attitude, lots of power and ambition... and she didn’t hide that when someone became an obstacle, Pacifica Northwest and her entire family got rid of them. She wasn’t heartless, but she was a business woman at the end of the day, and people that grew up in the business world could be both very greedy, very shallow, and very cold hearted. 

“That’s me, indeed, thanks for the compliment” he winked, playing with the double meaning.

“Care to introduce us?” Mabel pressed, still uncomfortable with the intruder’s presence.

Pacifica shrugged “Why don’t you ask your brother? He invited him, didn’t you?” 

“I didn’t.” Dipper pointed out, stuffing noodles inside his mouth while talking. It was weird to see him in his natural state, so relaxed, yet Bill found it charming in his own way. It surely worried Wendy, how Bill Cipher had this big grin in his face like a lovesick fool. “He invited himself, but we’re friends. Bill, my sister Mabel, her girlfriend Pacifica, our best friend Wendy. Wendy, Mabel, Pacifica, my friend Bill” 

“Nice to meet you all, beautiful ladies” Bill smiled his most charming smile, the one that got the CEO’s daughters or the CEO’s themselves giggling and telling his parents “Your son is the cutest gentleman”.

Mabel remained unimpressed but Wendy changed to a more relaxed posture and Pacifica smiled back, knowing damn well he was being charming on purpose and being to some extent happy that he respected them enough to play the good guy. Because when Bill Cipher considered you worthless, he didn’t care to play at all. He was a straight up jerk. 

“How come you don’t have your omega attached by the hip today?” Pacifica asked, all big smile and curious eyes, trying to see how Dipper would react at the mention of another omega.

Bill could notice the choice of wording had a purpose, although he couldn’t really imagine that it was supposed to piss Dipper off. At the end of the day, the omega didn’t seem romantically interested in him, not like the beta was at least. 

Dipper kept eating, eyes focused on Pacifica while pretending he didn’t care much. He was waiting for the answer of the beta, and he certainly wanted to know if there was another omega in the picture because if there was...If Bill was courting an omega, and he dared to flirt with him even though he was courting and that meant he was taken, Dipper couldn’t stay friends with a guy like that. Even if Bill’s own scent made him nervous to some extent and very aroused to another (but that was only confidential). 

Unlike Bill, who had been showing obvious interest in the omega, Dipper was used to playing pretend and hiding his feelings. He had had a crush on Wendy from the moment he met her, which was over by the end of freshman year when he confessed to his intentions. Until then, however, nobody could have guessed. 

When growing up, Dipper had been really obvious with every single crush he has had. When he liked an alpha, he would go red in the cheeks for a compliment. When he liked an omega, he would purr in content when they touched him. When he liked a beta... mmm... he had never liked a beta before. Apparently, their pheromones had less of an alarming effect on him, because unlike the situation with Wendy, he didn’t feel like he had to repress himself a lot. 

Or maybe it was the fact that he was attracted to Bill but he didn’t know him, he didn’t like him. Not yet. 

If there was another omega in the picture, though… jealousy wasn’t something Dipper experienced a lot, after the beginning of his teenage years his confidence had grown too much for that, but the thought of being played with made him annoyed at the impudence.

Waiting for a reply, which could be a “no, I do not have an omega”, didn’t make him angry at all. So, his scent couldn’t tell anything that would made them all go “Oh Dipper you are jealous!” Right? 

Bill kept his smirk on, but something in his eyes pointed how he couldn’t exactly grasp what was the point of the question. “You mean William?” 

“William Cipher, yeah, who else?” 

William Cipher? They even shared the surname, were they mated already? But Bill didn’t smell like a mated beta.

Actually, Bill’s scent was the best thing Dipper has experienced in a while. His ex-boyfriend used to wear too damn much cologne and it made him uncomfortable at times, because it emphasized the already strong smell of watermelon that he originally had and it was overbearing. 

No, alphas and betas didn’t have spicy scents necessarily only because of their designation. Most of them smell fruity, which gave comfort to omegas. Omegas, on the other hand, always had sweet scents. Sometimes too sweet for some people (like family members) that it was downright disgusting. Mabel couldn’t stand Dipper when he was in preheat, for example, but most people would kill to scent him during that time.

Bill’s scent was _just right_. A little bit like lemon drops and a lot like freshly washed sweaters (which didn’t make any fucking sense considering he never wore sweaters, only black pants and fancy shirts). He smelled like Bill, if it could be understood that way, and like a cozy home with bath bombs in the tub. 

Dipper kept on eating, but against all of his power, his own scent was becoming sour with annoyance. Bill better had an explanation for the entire William thing. 

Wendy sensed it first, and kicked him under the table (she had a sharp sense of smell). It brought Dipper out of his mind enough that he forced himself to think about unicorns and try to go to a happy place or something. Bill, next to him, stared from the corner of his eye.

Unexpectedly, Bill Cipher felt nervous at the whole conversation. Mostly because it was getting a reaction out of Dipper, and Bill didn’t expect a reaction. At all. He had been chatting with Dipper at night for the past two weeks, and walks him to his dorm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. The possibility of Dipper already liking him back and the way it made his chest warm once again, got him a little bit scared. 

Scared of change, scared of every possible outcome.

“Will is in a date” Bill explained “You know how he keeps on searching for his perfect alpha or some fairy tale like that” 

“Don’t be so anti-romance, Cipher” Pacifica laughed.

If Will is in a date, and Bill’s smell doesn’t become jealous or angry or sad... William is not the beta’s mate, and Dipper can come back from planet unicorn to planet earth. 

“I’m not anti-romance, I just don’t fancy him being around those jerks.” 

“You’re a jerk” Pacifica pointed out, pointing at him with her fork as well.

“Yeah but I’m his cousin” Bill clarified, Wendy finally let out a shaky breath and stared back at Dipper. The omega bit the inside of his cheek, for all the talk about being able to hide his feelings, he wasn’t so able to at the end. “Those other guys always see an easy prey when they meet him, the small little thing” 

Dipper pinched the hand around him, Bill’s eyes focusing on him once again. The beta’s mouth went dry, Dipper furrowing his brows in fake annoyance was the most adorable thing he had ever witnessed. 

Wendy wanted to gag at the bright expression on his face, all lovey dovey. 

The omega stated: “Maybe you’re underestimating his abilities to defend himself, he’s a Cipher at the end of the day” 

Bill couldn’t even argue, he only gave a grin with his body turning towards his sweet omega. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Aren’t the Ciphers all dominant and shit?” 

“Why, you would want me to be?” 

Dipper rolled his eyes, but he was playing, not really tired of Bill pressing his buttons like that. “We’re talking about your family here, can’t you keep it PG?” 

“PG18, for sure” 

Mabel growled in a very funny impulsive way, it made the omega and the other alphas laugh. “Don’t try to seduce my brother in front of me, dude” 

“Oh, calm down shooting star” Bill smiled, looking at the pretty earrings of golden stars she was wearing. Bill Cipher was used to giving people nicknames, because he usually didn’t bother to learn their actual names. 

“Dipper, omegas are not always as feisty as you are. You defend yourself and that’s great, but that’s a personality trait, not an animalistic one. Some betas are also easily intimidated and some alphas can be shy and all” Wendy reminded him.

As if Dipper didn’t know, he narrowed his eyes with a playful grin on his face. “I know, I know, I like to kick alpha ass but wouldn’t mind being dominated, I know we’re all free and different and shit, I don’t have internalized omegaphobia, you know?” 

Bill’s brain stopped working at ‘dominated’, mischief in his gesture as he listened to Dipper rant. He was so confident, so beautiful, so intelligent, and his fucking scent was delightful. 

The beta was horny once again, poor him. 

“What I mean is, if he was raised with someone like this one” he pointed at Bill, looking at him with a teasing smile “Don’t y’all think he would know how to take care of himself?” 

“Yeah” Bill smiled, fangs showing dangerously. The beta’s expression pulled Dipper’s insides in a thrilling way he wasn’t used to. It was really sexy. “I’m a big bad wolf after all” he said, and because he is always amusing, Dipper realizes without a doubt that Bill is both very shameless and very stupid, never cringing at any of the words that he chose.

They stared at each other for a few minutes in silence, Bill’s eyes traveling fast from the omega’s to his neck, searching for the glands where he knows Dipper’s scent will be the most intense and delicious thing. Dipper swallows, his Adam’s apple bobs and Bill wants to lick it and kiss his neck from the jaw to his shoulders. 

He’s practically salivating at the thought, and his scent must have showed his arousal because soon Pacifica and Wendy are laughing and Mabel, disgusted by the whole thing and the way her brother’s own smell is getting disgustingly sweet, throws at them a piece of pepperoni. 

“For fuck’s sake, keep it PG!” 

—-

Since the beginning of their friendship, and surprising absolutely everyone who knew any of them, neither Bill nor Dipper had started a fight yet. Bill Cipher was, as stated by Dipper and Will themselves, a vain guy who never let what he wanted scape his grasp, he did whatever had to be done to get his ways, even if he was usually able to avoid conflict with his sharp tongue. If provoked, the beta enjoyed being sadistic, a problematic guy with morbid tendencies. However, it took a lot to provoke the beta, and a lot to get him to react, because he was more of brain than muscle and didn’t like wasting his stamina in nonsense.

Dipper, on the other hand, was easier to rail up. He never got physical with anybody, but he would start throwing insults everywhere if needed. The omega had venom in his tongue and a fast pacing mind, which usually earned him a few punches, because alphas and betas felt particularly humiliated when an omega was able to call them out. It was alright though, because things never escalated beyond a slap or a black eye. Dipper wasn’t stupid enough to be confronting people when he didn’t have the upper hand, like a public scenario or other alphas and betas around him for safety in numbers.

Knowing that both of them were that problematic, and apparently unable to communicate correctly (because neither of them had admitted to their feelings yet), everyone was counting the days and wondering when the two of them were going to get in trouble. 

The day, unfortunately, came on a Friday night after studying in the library. 

As usual, Dipper Pines stayed to study in the library for at least three hours, and avoided arriving early to his dorm. He shared his room with another omega who always had alphas over and got the place stinking of sex. Dipper respected the omega, and they had an agreement to make it bearable: sex on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays until 10pm tops. The rest of the week, the place had to be free of those aroused pheromones. His roomie agreed.

Dipper had gotten used to Bill making him company on those days that he went back later. Bill said it was because he also had to study and Dipper was now his excuse to invest some time in the library, but the omega knew it was bullshit. Bill was a tiny bit protective, like any other beta or alpha that Dipper made friends with, but Bill tried to not let it show after the four first times when Dipper refused to talk to him, indignant about the whole “escorting you home” thing.

He usually hated that type of behavior, mostly because everyone knew he was able to defend himself, so their protectiveness was unnecessary. However, when Bill did it, it gave Dipper certain pleasure he liked to deny. He liked being the object of Bill’s attention, and liked that Bill walked him home at night not to baby him, but to distract him and give a hand in case things got out of Dipper’s control.

Dipper, actually, acted the same way with the beta. Dipper was all smiles and laughs and his nose scrunched, but if someone looked at Cipher for too long, the omega was soon seizing them up with a challenging stare. If the beta wanted to protect him, Dipper wanted to have his back as well. 

Currently, they were making a stop at Starbucks. Will, who Bill always puts up an excuse for Dipper not to meet, pleaded via text spam for a Frappuccino. And the beta couldn’t deny his cousin anything because he had sort of a soft spot for him (Plus, the older brother hated William’s sugary diet and Bill was always on board to piss him off). Everything was cool on their way to the café. They were discussing the Marvel Universe, because how-dare-them-erase-Clint’s-disability-in-the-movies, and laughing at the fact that they really tried to sell a steggy endgame in the last Avengers movie: “that’s just them forcing their normativity, if Bucky weren’t an alpha they would have been endgame”. 

When exiting though, Dipper found a sudden stop when a tall and beautiful beta pushed him with her shoulder, walking by as if trying to get his attention. The omega had been talking and looking at Bill all the time, so he probably bumped into someone, which is why he turned his head to look at her.

“Sorry” 

She didn’t respond or even addressed him, instead smiling one wicked smirk. “Bill Cipher, how much time has passed!” she exclaimed, falsely enthusiastic.

As Dipper stared at her, Bill twisted his own face into a polite yet frustrated smile. If Dipper hadn’t been spending the last months seeing him almost every day, he wouldn’t have been able to notice the stress in the beta, whose scent didn’t even give him away. 

“Hey, Pyronica” he greeted. “Long time no see, indeed”

Pyronica had been Bill Cipher’s best friend since childhood. Actually, she was his first business partner ever in their small and illegal essays and summaries trade at middle school, and that relationship evolved into a friendship which unluckily also blossomed into the most stressful yearlong romantic relationship of his life. Pyronica dumped him after Bill couldn’t stop his mouth before calling her a “clingy bitch with too much free time” who “really needed to put her brain to use before talking ever again”, and it was a very harsh response from him towards the other beta that he didn’t particularly regret, but he still would have preferred to avoid using the term “bitch” towards someone so important in his life. Yet she, because there was a reason why Bill dated her in the first place and that was her aggressive personality, embarrassed him no long after and they ended up in bad terms.

Bill never forgets anything, he never trusts people again when they have proven to be unfaithful to him because he is not going to risk his interests by giving others a second chance. Still, he doesn’t resent people either as in hating them, because he also doesn’t have time to waste in wishing bad upon others (unless we are talking revenge, on which he also acts fast, so he won’t be focusing on them for too long). With Pyronica it was a bad breakup and he would never put anything he values in her hands, but it’s not like he wants to look for a fight with her.

Except for the fact that she is obviously wanting to look for a fight with him, or to at least fuck him up in some way. Bill has no clue why. 

“Turns out the world is much smaller than we anticipated, isn’t it? I haven’t seen you since we graduated high school and I was first place.”

“You’re right, maybe I would have given you more competition if it weren’t for the principal’s decision to- ”

“Disqualify you? For the not very exemplary attitude you showed in prom? By the way, how is William doing? You know he was always my favorite of all the Ciphers.”

If Pyronica rubbed Dipper the wrong way before, now she was definitely ringing all his alarms. She was a beautiful woman with stunning eyes. All dressed up like Bill usually was, wearing a fitted short black dress and a magenta scarf that complimented her dark skin so well, and she was obviously (by the way she talked, the way she walked herself so tall and imposing) another rich girl who knew Bill outside of campus.

Outside of the Bill Dipper knew, the one who talked nerd shit and bought sugary stuff to please his younger cousin’s cravings. The same cousin that Bill never wanted to introduce yet Pyronica made clear that she knew him, she knew all the Ciphers. She was smart, maybe as clever as Dipper himself, and next to her expensive apparel Dipper only looked plain and simple, she was definitely superior.

For God’s sake, why is Dipper suddenly doubting himself over meeting a stranger?

His instincts are clouding his judgment, that’s certainly it, but omegas were known to be always in control of their reasoning. Pyronica didn’t act like a nice person, her fake politeness didn’t include Dipper as she was pretending he wasn’t even there, but she was throwing information around to make sure to probably jab at him. Why?

Bill takes a moment to make sure he’s putting the best front of a gentleman. “He is doing fine, I will send him your greetings.”

“That’s nice to hear… you know, after what happened at prom…”

“I think that’s enough, talking so much about the past may get us nostalgic.”

It came out soft, but Dipper knew it was a warning for her to shut up. Although, what happened at prom? Why was Bill disqualified as a runner up for first place of his year? Why was Pyronica close enough to him to allegedly meet all his family? Why is she bringing all of this up and why does it make Dipper uneasy?

He never looks at the floor as she continues to ignore him, because that’s what is expected from him, so he just stares at her instead. Doubt feels heavy on the top of his stomach, but Dipper Pines knows the feeling too well to scare him off or influence his behavior, and he refuses to turn on Bill and do a scene just because he is a little bit jealous and confused with this encounter. Bill obviously wants to shut her up.

“Oh yeah, our past is definitely upsetting. Remember that time you called me a clingy bitch?” 

This time her eyes focus on Dipper, finally acknowledging him. She wants her words to upset him, which they do, but Dipper recognizes this is some sort of test and he just holds his ground and his stare on her. She smiles. 

Bill feels something similar to anger bottling up inside, not precisely the feeling that will get him to yell at her and call her a wicked bitch this time, because he’s not fond of that insult anymore; but definitely is something that makes his fangs grow a bit inside his mouth. He doesn’t answer only to not let that show, or Pyronica may truly think that she holds some power on him, and his canines when they grow get noticeably large. Bill feels so personally attacked, that he doesn’t even look at Dipper until he notices how her eyes finally address him, and this time as the feeling grows, Bill can finally word what it really is.

Bill Cipher feels ashamed. 

The beta feels the type of embarrassment were you want to start fighting the person who is humiliating you and do or say anything so that the people around you won’t misunderstand. The type that happens when you are put in the spot, and it’s a very strange feeling to him because Bill Cipher always owns up to his very scarce mistakes and feels no shame after putting down someone himself. 

It’s weird to feel this level of guilt over a word such as “bitch”, which so easily slipped from his mouth four years ago. 

“I thought I told you to wait in the car” another person said, getting out of the Starbucks and seeing the three of them standing awkwardly by the parking lot. Dipper is the first one to drift his gaze towards this new person, who wears the same stylish clothing that both Bill and Pyronica have. “Hey, Bill” he greets, voice lacking emotion.

“Kryptos” Bill nods, saying nothing else until his fangs deflate.

“Hey, mmm…” 

“Dipper Pines” Dipper smiled politely, and although Kryptos was the first to admit to his presence, he could tell that the alpha was looking at him as though he were insignificant. 

“Nice to meet you, Dipper” Pyronica says, not even trying to act surprised as if she had just noticed him. “We never knew that Bill had a preference for…” she looks him up and down, and Dipper can’t contain the eye roll because wow, respectful much? “Simplistic omegas”

“We are just friends” Dipper decides to clarify, as he notices Bill’s brain must be somewhere else for the beta to be unable to speak. He also adds “I didn’t know he had such wonderful friends outside from campus”, with a fake sweetness in his voice that proves he can actually be just as hypocritical, even if he usually never bothers to.

Finally, Bill is able to talk again. “Actually, I didn’t know you two were a thing either.” 

Bill is aware of how much Pyronica worries about her reputation. She is the heiress of a textiles empire and always searched for a mate to show off in social gatherings, who would meet and exceed her parents’ expectations. They wanted an omega with great studies and easy on the eye, who could entertain guests and be a perfect host, but would also shut up if asked by their daughter to do so and just smile. Even Bill himself, who can easily gain everyone’s approval and ticked three of those four boxes, was never to their liking. Much less Kryptos, an alpha from a family in bankrupt.

“Oh no we are not, Bill” Pyronica insists, alarmed by the assumption and consequently shaking off the hand that Kryptos had placed on her waist. Dipper pities him for a millisecond, as he catches the slightly hurt flash in his eyes, but soon Kryptos walks towards his car without bothering to say a word. Pyronica stares at the Starbuck’s sign while thinking what exactly to do in this situation, and then she says “Nice seeing you” and flies behind her pissed off boyfriend.

Surprisingly, getting back at her doesn’t relieve Bill’s feelings. “I’m sorry” he finds himself saying, and that’s the only thing that can ease a bit of the negativity in his chest.

Dipper stays silent for a short time, elaborating in his head a way to question Bill about what just happened without sounding too pushy, then he hurries his steps in the direction of his building without coming up with the right wording. 

Not too long after, Bill is already walking by his side, sharing and respecting the suffocating silence hanging over their heads. Bill knew he had to break it and offer an explanation. Despite this, he also knew that he is a nasty and mean person upon popular opinion till this day and was even messier back then, so uncovering all of that would only push Dipper too far away for his liking. 

He chooses to repeat “I’m sorry” instead.

“What are you apologizing for?” Dipper pushes, after another small silence between the two.

“For Pyronica’s comment. If it helps at anything, I’d say that more than simplistic, you are significantly stunning.” Bill tries to tease, but it falls flat.

Dipper shrugs “I really don’t care about a stranger’s opinion on something as meaningless as my appearance” he lies, because to this moment Dipper doesn’t understand why she in general affected him this way “And I believe you have said all of that before”

“That you are a wonderful individual with the best personality out there?”

“That I’m pretty, which I already know”

Bill knew that by walk, they would only take up to fifteen minutes to get to Dipper’s apartment complex. But Cipher didn’t want to say goodbye with such a weird chemistry between them. Usually things were always easy for the two of them, and he wasn’t willing to risk losing that. “So, about that marvel discussion we were having... Would you like to go and watch a marvelous sequence of fighting by a soviet alpha femme fatale ready to take revenge? In other words, when are we going to see the black widow movie?”

“So are we really just dropping the conversation?” Dipper suddenly says.

“We are starting a conversation, pine tree” Bill furrows his brows, as if confused.

Considering the reaction, Dipper comes to the exhausting realization that he will have to push this conversation if he ever wants to get some answers, as much as he didn’t want to piss Bill off or show himself as disturbed by the encounter. 

He sighs “I mean back there, the whole Pyronica thing”

“She’s my ex-girlfriend, what else is to know? What happened before you, shouldn’t concern you, darling.” Bill tries, but there is certain bite in his words, and it bothers Dipper that he is being threatened.

“It concerns me Bill, because she seemed to hold a grudge against you.”

“We had a bad breakup, I would really rather not talk about it” Bill shuts him up.

His refusal to speak about the topic only works as fuel to the fire, and curiosity (Dipper’s eternal weakness) grows in his mind enough to completely ignore the sharp eyes Bill is giving him and the way his scent is for once not very welcoming around the omega. 

Dipper decides to try once again, he’s aware of how the bad blood between the betas didn’t seem to come from a place of hurt but a place of hate instead, and he doesn’t believe Bill is keeping quiet because he is hurting or traumatized. “Of course it would be a bad breakup, you must have been serious about her. She even met your family”

“I’m always serious” Bill replies, his eyes linger in Dipper’s “But as I said before, I would rather not talk about it.”

“Bill…”

“I have always respected your boundaries, Dipper. Maybe you should try to do the same for me.”

The choice of words genuinely affects Dipper, and the omega feels like he’s being attacked in some way. Mostly because he doesn’t mean to pry into Bill’s private life, he is just concerned. And maybe Bill refuses to answer because the beta doesn’t trust him, even though they are practically courting right now, which is also nonsensical because how can Dipper flirt with this guy he knows nothing about? What does Bill really wants if for something as small as a breakup story, he’s already fed up and closed off? 

Dipper is an over thinker, but he tries to ignore those question bubbling up. “I know, I didn’t mean to sound like I wanted to pressure you to talk”

“Then we are fine. So, black widow when?” Bill’s voice goes back to its soft and happy tone, losing the slight threat that it had moments ago, and the way he can so easily switch his moods doesn’t work in his favor to soothe Dipper at all.

The younger tries one last time, promising himself to drop the topic and try again to talk about exes in other occasion if it doesn’t work now. “Bill, are you serious about me too?” The beta’s entire mood changes once again and he is smiling wide next to Dipper, but the omega doesn’t look back at him. Dipper Pines is never one to ask for reassurance, much less from Bill who had been chasing him for two whole months at this point. Even so, Dipper felt suddenly insecure about how much he knew about Bill and how much that meant. “If so, why don’t you ever want to introduce me to William?”

Finally, and mistaking Dipper’s question as a way to get him to talk about Pyronica (which to some extent it was, but it was also because right now Dipper needed the reassurance that he at least was starting to get attached to someone he knows more than the name of), Bill wiped off his smile and stopped dead in his tracks. 

“I have been pursuing you for a long time already, Dipper. If we are not together is because you said it yourself, and because you decided we were only going to be friends, so now you don’t really have the right to meddle with my business.”

Without receiving a warm answer and because for the first time Dipper felt mistreated by his suitor, he couldn’t control the way his scent went bitter thanks to the intrusive and overwhelming thoughts now louder in his head. 

Dipper Pines felt, after so many years being unaware of this sensation: rejected. And rejected by a guy he did like, but he knew nothing about, who obviously was not going to open up, who saw him as his current entertainment and was not willing to get attached. Maybe that is why he refused to tell him about Pyronica before, or he always stopped him from meeting William, who was his family. He was toying with him, and there was nothing Dipper hated the most than being used as a toy like everyone thought omegas were supposed to be used. 

“I think you can walk on your own now” Bill finally said, hands in his pockets and eyes cold and calculating. 

Dipper bit the inside of his cheek before saying something stupid like “I’m sorry, I don’t mind being kept in the dark, I can be your little secret!”, and he looked back at Bill with as much resentment as he could master. “Fine” he said.

They weren’t precisely fighting, not when Bill always refused to raise his voice, but they were definitely angry at each other and both made it clear. Still, Bill Cipher stayed put while Dipper walked the final block to his apartment complex. When Dipper looked back and found Bill staring, Dipper couldn’t hold back a “Fine!” that he mumbled with enough loudness to show that they were actually fighting.

Bill thought with certain sadness that the way Dipper’s scent changed was not even as horrible as he expected, and that to their disappointment, instead of motivating him to stay away, it only pulled him back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go. I am sorry for the long paragraphs, I write this down in my computer but when I reread it in my phone, the format makes it look like a lotttt and very dense. I promise is not, so if y'all find it easier, I would recommend reading this in parts I guess, or in the computer. 
> 
> Oh and fair warning, Bill Cipher is a drama queen.

Since their “disagreement” (as Bill described it to William when he later asked), the beta has not searched for the omega, and Dipper hasn’t tried to approach him either. It’s been almost two whole weeks, which Bill was using to get his mind cleared out of the constant thought of his not official mate, yet he still found himself with his eyes scanning the crowd on the cafeteria on search for the smaller Pines. 

William stays standing next to him. While Bill rests his back against a column, Will rests his head on the blond’s shoulder. “If you’re not going to talk to him, could you stop obsessing?”

Bill pretended he wasn’t, and dropped his eyes to the phone on his hands. The phone that had the picture of an oblivious Dipper reading in the library, and his number flashing in the screen, tempting Bill. Fuck his luck. 

“You want to talk to him” Will stated, rolling his baby blues “Just call him and apologize”

“I have nothing to apologize for”

“Then delete his contact and stop searching for him wherever you go, it makes you look like a creep”

The idea of not talking to his pine tree, and on top of that erasing any proof that they actually ever knew each other, wounds Bill’s heart in a corny way that he’s not familiar with. Since when is his cold demeanor affected by only the stupid hypothesis of being forever far from Dipper? Dipper Pines, an omega he was courting unofficially only for two fucking months. 

He was dating Pyronica for a whole year and breaking up with her felt liberating. When Bill got wrongly attached to his second friend with benefits, he broke things off because at the time he was convinced that he couldn’t court what his mother liked to call “low lives” or “commoners”. That, for example, hurt a bit and Bill even cried over it, but within a month he was ready to go on with his life as if it had never happened. More surprisingly, during the first week of him breaking that arrangement, he found himself wanting the omega to ring his door or call him and insist. And because it never happened, soon he also found himself wanting to get rid of the romantic feelings he was developing.

On the other hand, with Dipper who he neither dated nor fucked, he felt during the first week the same desperate want that made him keep his phone on during all his classes and with the loudest ring tone ever at night. He waited anxiously day and night for a message or a call, any signal that Dipper was missing him and still interested, even if it were the bare minimum such as a like on Instagram. Bill Cipher had been desperate for any excuse to make up with Dipper and keep his pride while doing it.

And unlike his other previous romantic interests, on the second week Bill confirmed that those feelings were not going away. Furthermore, he wasn’t wishing constantly for his care for Dipper to die down soon, Bill had felt too happy while hanging out with Dipper that even missing him wasn’t enough for him to regret the previous. 

That was what made this entire thing even more complicated. 

Bill Cipher was not stupid or as emotionally unintelligent as he may look. He got interested in Dipper, wanted to court him, and now he wants to mate him and actually be his boyfriend. Cipher knows this is all very rushed and very intense and very authentic. 

That’s also quite scary.

As far as Bill can recall, his parents were never in love with each other, they didn’t even care to pretend. They just fit perfectly in their little world, both good looking and young promises of success. His dad became CEO of his company at 32 and his mother created her own with its foundation on the fallen empire of her family. It was all working perfectly until Bill’s mother tried to destroy his dad’s business, in exchange he drove her to bankrupt with corrupt methods, and bought what was left. In his opinion that was pretty sad considering he was rooting for his mother to win because she was the self-made one. 

The point is, that happened only because they did not love each other, at some point they stopped caring for the other. Had they been in love, his dad would have never crashed her like that. His mom wouldn’t have betrayed him either. To this day they are still married and Bill is aware that his mother is waiting for his dad to die so that she can at least inherit half of both companies.

It may sound paranoid but is one of the reasons why Bill is not very fond of the idea of falling in love. Love sometimes has a happy ending, but sometimes it doesn’t. With a 50/50 possibility of being dumped, mating with somebody and loving them meant he could easily lose half of his business to the other part. And Bill Cipher had a much sacrificed upbringing for him to allow someone else to take what belongs to him: the family business which he considers economical reparations for emotional abandonment. 

He knew more time with Dipper Pines would mean to fall in love with Dipper Pines, to trust him, to mate him, and mating was practically getting married to him but without the legal papers. Once mated and with their scents forever intertwined, Bill is vulnerable enough for Dipper to actually do whatever he wants to him.

Dipper Pines could use him and step on him, rob him, mistreat him, cheat on him…, the list could go on and Bill hates to admit that most of the times he would be idiotic enough to forgive.

As stated before, Bill Cipher forgives but never forgets. But when you are in love, and he has read it up, you lie to yourself that things will change and you give a thousand of stupid chances to worthless people. 

“You’re a weirdo” William finally sighs. “You don’t even have to reeeaaally feel sorry for what happened, just lie to him and apologize” 

That’s the second most scary part of this all. Bill Cipher prides himself in his abilities to lie and manipulate people, it’s practically his second nature. He twists shit and ends up winning in almost absolutely everything. He could destroy everyone if it weren’t so tiring. He uses people, and he knows how to do it well. But Dipper Pines was one of those guys who made your heart race and made you want to be better.

Yuck, Bill doesn’t even want to lie to Dipper.

As a conclusion: loving Dipper means being fucked. It means being weak. It means for the predator to give up his fangs and become a prey, and Bill was never willing to do that.

Unless…

“No” he stated, deciding to stop this madness. “I am not sorry and I am not apologizing. Furthermore, if pine tree won’t apologize to me, then I shouldn’t be wasting my time with just another omega”

“Just another omega, uh?” 

Will can’t contain the loud gasp that escapes him the moment Mabel Pines grasps his cousin by the neck of the Armani shirt, wrinkling the black fabric with her fists. Bill only hits his head against the column, wondering why he is so unlucky at times.

“Shooting star, hi” he says, not very intimidated by the alpha.

She seems angry at him, which is something Bill can’t really understand. He was not trash talking Dipper (he doesn’t believe he ever could), he only said… 

“You called my baby brother, yeah, the one you were so- oh so- crazy about fucking, _just another omega_.” 

“I mean” Bill stared at her, hard “Isn’t that what he is?”

“No” she refutes without even blinking before continuing “Dipper is not any omega. He’s my brother, he’s a wonderful person and would make the best mate of them all, and every omega is special in their own unique way but my Dipper is so special that the moment I tell on you he will dump you without a doubt”

William has to jump in his rescue before Bill finishes the remaining of any opportunity he may have had with Dipper Pines. “Ok, ok, this has been taken completely out of context”

“He’s just another omega in the world and in my life, I will eventually get over him and Mabel please tell him that this is for the better and-” Will covers Bill’s mouth with a surprisingly strong grip. “No, Mabel, he is denial. Look he can’t even get himself to insult your brother, the most he can say is _just another omega_ ”

“That’s more than enough” she argues.

“No! Wait” William insist, and his pleading blue eyes and the sweetness of his scent can manipulate Mabel a bit into at least staying and listening. “He and your brother fought the other day, now Bill is a bit of a mess and really needs to check on his priorities and put himself together. Don’t tell your brother about this, please.” 

By giving her the puppy eyes, pleading and shining of fake tears, William is able to change Mabel’s attitude and she just sighs, giving in. “Are you serious about Dipper?” she asks Bill, to which William drops his hand. Before Bill stops himself, he’s already nodding as an automatic answer.

“If you fight with the one you love, you fix it. I know you two weren’t dating for so long, and I don’t particularly like you, but he did. Dipper seemed happier around you and I only want you around him if that means he’s happy. So, if you end up making up, you have to court him. Dipper doesn’t like people pushing him but he’s not scared of commitment either. If you are, then leave him alone.” At that, Mabel turns around and walks away towards campus, were Pacifica is standing and staring at them.

William immediately takes Bill by the shoulders, as his cousin tries to straighten his clothes with both hands. Will shakes him nervously. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Don’t swear” is the only thing Bill says.

“Yeah, mmm, don’t fuck it up then?” Will insists “Two minutes ago you’re moping over him and now you’re just giving up? What the fuck, Bill?”

“I don’t think I owe you an explanation, William”

“Don’t act all cryptic with me, Bill. Not with me. If you like Dipper why don’t you just court him? You were doing that for two whole months and he straight up rejected you. Now you have an actual chance and you decide to just give it up the moment it gets hard? Love doesn’t work like that”

“What do you know about love?” Bill finally says back, knowing he’s going for a sore spot and not caring any less. He doesn’t need to think harder about this or his mind will go blank and his instincts will take over, and all they have been saying for the past few months is _Dipper, Dipper, Dipper, Dipper_. He needs William off his case, now.

However, as much as Bill would like for his mean words to cut into his cousin, William grew up used to insults and all of that shit so no, no he’s not going to fall into his cousin’s game. “I know that I want to feel it. I would do everything to be loved back by someone I want. You’re literally getting the chance to and all you want to do is play the trust issues card. You’re going to end up like your parents.”

“That” Bill points out, he pushes Will’s hands off him and stares with as much of a bored stare as he can master. “Is exactly what I’m trying to avoid”

Once he leaves William alone, looking into him without really understanding what his cousin had tried to explain, as if a flick suddenly changed and Bill Cipher was a whole new person with a completely new resolution about Dipper Pines, Bill walked to his next class. 

While walking, he felt something was off.

Bill checked his phone and it was as functional as it was minutes ago, bright with the face of the omega who was messing with his head. He touched his collar, where the buttons were still in their place, and then he looked into his bag, counting both his notebooks and the laptop that should always be there. Something was off, and as he took a deep breath to get himself together, Bill realized his scent had gotten so sour that even he couldn’t stand himself.

\---

Bill Cipher doesn’t leave his room for two whole days. William has called so many times that Bill doesn’t even bother with turning his phone on anymore. He stays inside his room thinking about the time he has left.

No, he’s not dying, but is close to it. Bill thought he had more time before he really caught feelings, but apparently even that got out of hand rapidly. One of the first things Bill mastered once he had finished the awkward stages of uncontrollable puberty, was controlling what his scent could tell about him. 

Alphas never bothered to do so, because they tended to be temperamental little shits and liked to walk around with a gigantic warning sign in their scent. Omega’s couldn’t really do it either, as omegas were supposed to calm others down and almost always smelt sweet even in stressful situations, to help their environment with their pheromones. And when their smell turned sour or bitter, it also worked to prove that people around them needed to change their behavior and calm them down. Betas, on the other hand, were just there.

Betas are in the middle of nature. They don’t have an alpha voice, they don’t go through a rut usually and even if they did, it never involved knotting. They are not sweet like omegas either, and never experiment heats, but female betas were just as fertile. When it came to their scents, the pheromones could always prove how they were feeling, the good or the bad, it was always in the way their perfume became nasty or tasty. 

As the heir of one of two joined companies, and the future owner of the world (talking about monopoly, jeez), Bill soon taught himself to keep his scent from telling on him. Some people were annoying, some people were perverted and disgusting, yet they seemed to be everywhere in the business world and Bill knew he had to charm them most of the time. It was like keeping something hidden, and he had never gotten so out of hand to let it all unfold like that day, back in the cafeteria.

Everyday Bill Cipher grows sicker. Call him dramatic, but he feels sick in the delirious thing everyone else called love. The moment he realized that was exactly what he didn’t want, it hit him as if waiting for the precise moment his will would bend. Bill refused to lose this inner battle with his beast. And he was just now surviving through day two.

That’s why he stays in his room locked, crying while watching movies of heartbreak. Every time he changes the movie and is another beta being dumped by their alpha, or once again cross-star lovers who can’t be together, or just an omega/omega relationship where one of them dies at the end, Bill yells at the TV and keeps on bowling his eyes out.

He is eating gummy bears, puffy eyes focused on the figure of a woman breaking down in tears on the floor, and Bill’s lectures with very close deadlines are all forgotten on his desk.

Someone bangs on the door. There’s a part of him that says Dipper is outside, worried to death by his disappearance. Bill would like to choke that part of him until is dead and gone.

“It’s me! Open the fucking door!” The voice is William’s, but Bill ignores him.

Why? Because he’s Bill Cipher. 

Suddenly the door opens, and the fuming figure of his sweet cousin is breaking in with the power of an entire SWAT team. Bill is astonished with the fact that someone so small could look so furious and strong all of a sudden, and he cringes at the reminder that of course William had a key.

“You haven’t answered any of my phone calls!” he accuses. 

Bill narrows his eyes with annoyance and goes back to watching the TV. Soon, he throws more gummy bears inside his mouth as if they were popcorn. 

“Bill Cipher, What the actual fuck are you doing?!”

“You’re going to give me a headache” the blond finally says. 

“You! You are going to give ME a headache!” the younger boy answers instead, slamming the door so hard that the hit shakes the windows around them. Bill realizes he won’t be able to watch anything with his annoying cousin here, so he pauses his movie marathon and finally looks back.

With his mouth still stuffed of sugary shit, he talks. “I never asked you to come or look after me”

William takes deep breaths to keep calm, because he’s very emotional and this close to just punching his best friend. When he speaks, sweet scent soothing Bill, his voice comes out soft and careful. “You’re my pack, Bill. You were there when I thought I didn’t have anybody, and I didn’t even had to ask. I can’t just let you do this to yourself”

“What is _this_ that you are talking about?” 

“You are going through a literal crisis and I don’t even know why. I just know it all went downhill once you and Dipper fought.”

“We didn’t fight”

“Then why are you so upset?” Will asked, sitting in the bed next to Bill, and stroking his tousled hair. 

Bill whimpered in a way it surprised both of them, proving to be genuinely heartbroken over this entire thing. “I don’t know” he lied.

“Don’t bullshit me right now.” Will tried again, his voice still gentle “I don’t need to know all the details, I just care about how you feel”

“That’s all the details” Bill insisted, refusing.

Will never rolled his eyes, not even at the childish display. “You are sad and scared, aren’t you?”

Bill nodded. 

“If you were angry, you would be finishing homework already because you get some crazy high energy levels every time. Once that’s done, you would be planning revenge and it wouldn’t have taken two days.”

“No”

“And you left all your homework unattended to do what? Instead of scheming I find you here crying. Big Bill Cipher crying over romantic tragedies. Choking himself on sugar until he decides life is worth leaving this room”

“Yes”

“I have never seen you had a breakdown like this before.” William whispered, worry tainting all of his words. Bill himself was worried.

It’s not like his life wasn’t hard, or that he had never gone through shit that made him cry before. It’s just that Bill always knew what to do next, he cried a bit and then continued with his day. Currently, he had no idea what to do. 

He voices that out loud. “I have no idea what to do”

“Is this about Dipper Pines?” Will tries again.

Bill shrugs “Yes, but it is also about what he fucking means”

“What does he mean?”

“A mate” 

“I thought you always were interested in him as a mate…?”

“Yeah” Bill repeated, bothered by the fact that he wasn’t making any sense. “I saw him and I just knew I had to have him, like kiss him or date him or something. The thought of mating was never really there with anybody prior. Mating always meant business, or an obligation still far away… with Dipper Pines mating seems like something much rawer.”

As Will stays in a waiting silence, Bill forces himself to continue. He likes putting his thoughts into words but he doesn’t like sharing them, though, he’s more of the type to write them down.

“I look at him and that’s the first word that pops into my head: _mates_. The second one is _mine_. The third one is _his_.” Bill sighs and collapses in his bed with a red nose like Rodolfo’s. “I’m pathetic.” He mutters.

William tries to reassure him almost instantly. He can’t quite understand the internal turmoil, because of how many details Bill keeps to himself, but William tries to do with the information that he has. “You are not pathetic, isn’t all of that good?”

“Yeah, wonderful” Bill tries to say sarcastically, but his voice breaks at the end in a way that can only show honesty. “It’s just too much. And all over a guy I don’t even know for that long”

“ _You_ are making it too much” William emphasizes “Overthinking everything when all you have to do is go there and ask to court him. Dipper will say yes.”

“And what if he says no”

“If he refuses, then you actually have a reason to get in this bed and cry like a kid. But until then, what are you even doing?”

It’s never like Bill to let William look after him. The very short times that Bill has proven to be an actual human with feelings, he always hid them well and dealt with them by himself. He was supposed to be some sort of protection for his cousin, and not a nuisance. For God’s sake, Bill Cipher was not supposed to be this level of unsteady to begin with. Maybe William was right and he was an actual vulnerable human after all.

“I don’t know” he confesses, because he’s too high on sugar to bother himself with lying.

“Hey” William only replies “Self-sabotage is not a good look on us Ciphers.” 

Bill studies the words for a few seconds. Self-sabotage, that’s what he is doing, isn’t it? Bill Cipher doesn’t want to become a prey, doesn’t want to be so vulnerable that at some point he will find himself with nothing, trailing behind Dipper Pines and obeying every single thing the kid requests from him, only to be rewarded by any minimum sign of love. But why is he creating all of this mess to begin with, when Dipper and him are fighting and not really talking? It’s because he knows he would do anything to go back to speaking terms with Dipper. And because Bill Cipher was never one to be defeated by hypothetical problems, he finally decides that he will cross that bridge when he comes to it.

Until then, he’s ready to put his shit together and face his fear, embodied in no other than the beautiful Dipper Pines.

\---

“I’m not ready” Bill realizes, once he is standing in front of Dipper Pines’ dorm. He looks the opposite, though. Bill washed his hair thoroughly and carefully, and got himself into the best possible outfit his still saddened mind could come up with. William had sent an emoji of a happy face as a sign of approval. 

His entire week was a mess. On day three he stayed at the dorm while his cousin made him copies of what they learned on the subjects he skipped. On the third day he also finished his homework due on the fourth day, and actually ate something healthier than gummy bears and soda. Bill Cipher saw in the mirror the person he has never been, an emotional wreck of a teenage beta. And unlike that reflection, Bill is always a collected young man on the top of the food chain: He’s the opposite of pathetic and refuses to go back to whatever he was for the short lapse of two days that soon will feel like the memory of a fever dream.

Today is Friday and Dipper is in his dorm by himself, because his roommate’s encounter exceeded 10pm and so he decided on sleeping over his lovers’ house. Of course, that was a lie, and Bill is sure because of the 20$ bill he just wasted on getting time alone. 

The beta knows to keep his scent on check before it spikes into something clingy and desperate, and tries to prepare himself for the moment he finally sees Dipper Pines, because he just knows that is going to hit him hard after not seeing him for so long. He’s not ready, but he will never be. And as his cousin had stated: Self-sabotage wasn’t a good look on a Cipher.

He knocks on the door, and because it’s supposed to be a safe place for students, Dipper opens without really bothering to ask who is that on the other side. When their eyes meet, Dipper’s ears redden. 

Dipper is wearing his pajama bottoms, which are fuzzy and pink and have star patches attached because for a whole month Mabel got obsessed with her sewing machine. He, however, isn’t wearing anything else on, and Bill stares completely taken back because wow, he knew he was going to get affected, just not this much.

Without a shirt on, is easily to see how much strength Dipper actually has. His arms are toned in the same way that his abdomen is, tanned skin splattered with moles, and the veins on his arms pop. Bill just drinks him in, from the slightly broad shoulders to the narrow waist, and finally the pants that hang low from his hips, barely covering the little hair that runs from his navel to his- 

Dipper slams the door in front of him, cutting his daydreaming. Bill can only sigh, thinking about how pretty Dipper’s dick must be under all of that, and wondering if it would be cut or not. “Oh, pine tree…” he calls, singing playfully.

On the other side, Dipper doesn’t share his enthusiasm, but he can’t deny the way his heart hurries its pace and thrums against his chest, even if he does hate the effect Bill Cipher has on him. 

“What do you want, Bill?” he finally says, opening the door again and wearing now a matching pink sweater with what seemed like lots of glitter all over it. It was a bit short and ended abruptly on his wrists, as Bill noticed once the disappointment of seeing him covered washed off.

Bill smiles trying his best to not be threatening while doing so, however he finds himself not having to try really hard as he smiles authentically by instinct. “I have missed you”

“Yeah? Maybe don’t behave like a jerk next time”

“I came with a peace offering” Bill clarifies, just because he can sense Dipper’s guard still up. “Please let me talk”

Dipper just nods, biting the inside of his cheek while thinking. Bill notices the omega is anxious, because he moves his leg like a nervous mechanism. It’s something too telling, maybe Dipper is too tired to care about pretending right now. 

“I won’t apologize because I don’t believe that I offended you the last time we talked. We walked into my ex, Pyronica, and it was awkward and she attacked us both. I don’t know what angers you about this whole issue, but I would like to know because I would like for us to go back to normal”

“What is normal?” Dipper suddenly questions, completely diverging the conversation. Bill realizes that Dipper wasn’t probably so tired, and the trembling leg was actually a sign of his own thinking. Maybe Dipper was self-sabotaging as well.

The omega waited for an answer, his brown eyes seemed worried and hurt all over, and Bill had no clue about what was going on. “What does that mean?”

“You want us to go back to normal, what is precisely _back to normal_?”

“Back to us hanging out, being together and talking, you know, meeting each other…?” Bill trails off, describing their relationship without big and scary words like _courting_ , but trying to guess if he was fucking it up there. 

Dipper only seemed more upset over his answer, he let a humorless laugh and tried closing the door again. “Goodbye Bill”

“No, wait” Bill stops the door as gently as he can, without moving too fast just in case it looks intimidating to Dipper. For some reason Dipper Pines is not acting like normal, instead he seems like the scared shadow of what the omega is in his daily. For a few minutes Bill is afraid that he will scare him off like a street cat.

He can’t really let Dipper slip out of his hands right now. “What did I do wrong?”

“What are we even doing, Bill?” Dipper sighs. Bill is not close to losing his patience but he for once can understand how hard is to try to comfort someone without knowing the full story, and he feels sorry for the way he vented to William at the beginning of the week.

Bill decides to go for it, because he’s a Cipher and Ciphers are always focused on their target, and they never lose, at least never without giving a fight. “Do you want me to court you, Dipper Pines?”

He’s almost sure that he just said the right thing, like his cousin encouraged. 

“What? No” the omega answers, fast and alarmed.

It hits Bill’s bubbling confidence, and it dies down as he goes back to square one. “Ok, you don’t want us to court? Maybe we could try just dating?”

“I don’t want a mate” 

“You don’t need to date to mate, we could just give it a go”

“How” Dipper insists, but is a rhetorical question so Bill shuts his mouth as the younger man goes on. “How could we just give it a go when I don’t even know you, Bill Cipher. Everything about you is trivial and I don’t know if I can trust someone I know nothing meaningful about. How can you just court someone and still refuse to tell them the least or introduce them to your friends? How can you court someone and expect them to be your mate when- when you already know so much about them yet you don’t open yourself to them like that? That’s not fair, and mating means an equilibrium within the two, it means you both trust each other and… and- right now, Bill, right now I don’t think I can trust you”

After Dipper finishes venting, and all of his feelings seemed to have rushed out of his mouth with the nerves making his voice high-pitched, Bill is unable to really react. By the way that Dipper had gotten tongue tied, it was quite obvious that he felt scared of a negative reaction from the beta, however Bill not only felt dread at the idea of losing Dipper, he felt certain irritation at the argument that was apparently eating Dipper entirely, so he was in fact full of negative emotions.

Why is Dipper telling him this? And what is Dipper so scared about? Obviously he wouldn’t like Bill throwing a tantrum in the middle of the hallway, or starting a yelling match within the two of them, still Bill couldn’t really understand what Dipper was fearing about his reaction because even if he claims they don’t really know each other, Bill is sure that Dipper knows he’s not the type to make a scene.

Bill Cipher wasn’t the type to fall on the floor and cry and act completely hopeless and desperate to be forgiven or just make peace, he was desperate (don’t get him wrong) but he was also used to pretending he wasn’t as emotionally unstable as he actually is. And right now he is being rejected, like he expected to be and had been crying about for the past weeks. 

He opens his mouth and finds himself too overwhelmed to say something, so he closes it until he tries again and all he can say is “I don’t understand”

“What don’t you understand?” Dipper sighs, looking at the ceiling like he can’t tolerate having this conversation. He’s probably just as overwhelmed and tired. “I can’t be friends with you or date you or court you or any of those things because that day we fought over Pyronica, that day I… kinda realized that she was mentioning all this things that I had no idea about because you never shared them with me”

“I told you I didn’t want to talk about those things” Bill explains, still missing the point “You don’t need to know everything about me for us to have fun”

“Yeah, but then that’s all we are doing, _having fun_. Real relationships, whether romantic or platonic are more than just two people hanging out to kill their boredom”

“I hang out with you and I miss you because I like you more than just to kill my boredom, as you put it. If this is about you being insecure over the depth of our relationship, then-”

Soon Dipper was cutting Bill off again, his frown deep over the assumption and his ears red with shame. “I’m not insecure over bullshit!”

“Then I don’t get it!” Bill repeats, throwing his hands in the air for the first time. He feels as if they were walking on thin ice for some reason, yet he couldn’t guess what was he doing to fuck it up, he only knew that he was about to do so. He didn’t want to lose his chances with Dipper like this, without being able to play all of his cards or even understand why he was losing him.

To Dipper, is all quite obvious. The young omega is also in his own world of denial, and at this point he has too many doubts on whatever Bill wants them to be, and he’s not used to building relationships based on stress, and let’s just say that the feeling of attraction to Bill that he has to admit he feels doesn’t look precisely as the best thing to act on right now. 

Taking that in consideration, Dipper doesn’t share the same will to discuss things and work them out that Bill had the moment he stepped in his apartment complex. “I just don’t want this anymore. Whatever this is…” he motions between the two of them with his hands “Whatever you’re giving me without titles or labels or anything, drop it. I wanted to be friends, and you can’t even do that with me”

“Why?” Bill stares, blank in his expression. Then it twists into something slightly malicious as he recriminates him: “Because I don’t want to tell you everything about me from the moment I was born?”

“No, it’s not like that” Dipper glares at him with anger, his anxiety now completely replaced. “You don’t tell me anything. Worse even, you don’t introduce me to your friends. I don’t even know your favorite color, or what school you went to, or if you have anything in your closet that would make you look like you are attending a punk concert and not a business meeting at any time” he gestured at Bill’s figure “It’s not about reading you like an open book, you don’t like that and it wouldn’t be as entertaining if I had you already all figured out… it’s about-” Dipper moves his hand desperately, as if searching for a word he has on the tip of his tongue or that he can’t bring himself to say. “About _trust_. And if you don’t know the difference between the two, then just accept that this was never going to work. What I’m asking for means trust.”

Then, Dipper is closing the door slowly, hoping somewhere deep in his heart that Bill will say something to change his stubborn mind even if that would mean for them to have a bigger fight and pick up the pieces for the following months. 

Bill is speechless as he stares at the wood and the knob. It’s very easy how something can break in an instant, and months of _whatever this was_ come down to a door and the minute it takes to close.

This could be it, the end of something that didn’t start at all. Ironic how Bill had already cried more for a two months nonexistent relationship than all his other romantic experiences summed up. And the beta wonders what the fuck just happened and how in one week he went from “I need Dipper Pines, please come back to me” to “I don’t want Dipper Pines in my life and I’m going to break my own heart before he does it” to “I am scared of loving Dipper Pines yet I’m going to try so he can reject me and I can have a real excuse to move on” to “Dipper Pines actually rejected me”. 

Maybe it’s the hormones talking or naturedly the instinct of acting on his heart’s desire for once instead of with his now-not-always-right mind, but instead of “Oop, it happened, yikes” and going back to his room, Bill Cipher’s brain is malfunctioning and among all the unknown feelings that he’s experimenting, he can only figure out something: Ciphers never lose. 

He is losing, and he gave a good fight to win Dipper over. But Bill Cipher never loses, not even like this, not even when he has been told that he has lost. Why? Because there’s always the option of a rematch. 

\---

When he was younger, and because he was not the typical child with a good heart who asked for hugs and cried when his momma left for work, people thought he didn’t fit the definition of normal. To this day William still can’t believe Bill genuinely doesn’t care for his parents or any other family member besides Will. 

As a child, he never appeared fascinated about the school’s bunny but his eyes did shine when it came to dissecting frogs. Bill watched the same movies as other kids his age, but saw nothing wrong in the villains’ intentions or methods, if anything at age 12 he was criticizing them more for their failure than for doing unethical things. 

One day he broke an alpha’s arm by twisting it so hard behind his back that he also dislocated the shoulder, and when the parents of the kid demanded at least an apology, Bill only said he wasn’t going to apologize for something he didn’t regret. On the other side, he offered to pay the hospital bill with his parent’s money, and then said he wasn’t going to pay at all unless they promised to bring him to the appointment with them so he could hear more about how he tore some muscle in full detail by the doctor. 

He was a smart kid who at first was wrongly diagnosed by some amateur as a child with sociopathic tendencies (you don’t just diagnose minors with this type of things, everyone knows that). Now, as a grown up, he knows at the time they should have said “psychopathic tendencies” because he knew right from wrong but he just didn’t care about it, he has his own ethics and rules, and he didn’t feel guilty over many of his acts as a kid. Or as a teenager. Still, the point is that as he grew up and stayed quite antisocial all of his life, diagnosed with nothing, Bill learned three things. 

The first one is that he was not evil at the time and he is not evil today. He doesn’t care about most people (unless they are fictional and we are talking about emotional movies) and that’s true but on his defense even people with the biggest hearts won’t be able to emphasize with absolutely everyone. He also has a fascination for human and animal anatomy to the point where it gets slightly sadistic, but that’s just a hobby and has nothing to do with his mental state. He was also arrogant but because he knew he was the best, not because he fit in a box where the psychologist could just say “Oh yeah, this one is a psychopath, better lock him in before he commits a crime!” 

He didn’t feel like committing any crime, it would be too much to think about and certain things the public considered a crime were not a crime in his eyes. Revenge, for example, could be justified even if it ended up in something criminal. And some objectives were also worth “twisted” or “illegal” methods to achieve. Still, he was not interested in getting his hands dirty because of the big risk that it meant for his future as a CEO and, probably at some point, owner of half of America and Europe. 

The second thing that Bill Cipher learnt about himself was that it was hard for him to catch feelings and stay in healthy romantic relationships or friendships. With William it works out because is his cousin, they grew up together and Will tolerates many of his behaviors that others consider to be narcissistic, and because William in general made him happy. Will didn’t judge or pry, he was thankful and caring, and he was definitely a funny guy who could also be very impulsive and emotional, yet entertaining nevertheless. With Pyronica and the small group of friends they created (Kryptos, 8ball, etc.) they were fine for a while because they shared the same passion for trouble. And it worked when Bill was seeking for a thrill outside from his life as an outstanding student, but it proved to be more of a burden when he had the big fall out with Pyronica. Then he caught feelings for a boy and he cried and he felt pathetic, and now he was doing that all over again yet he couldn’t stop himself at all.

And that’s the third thing that he learns, that he tolerates Dipper Pines, wants to be better for him (at least in what others would consider to be better, like being less of a “jerk”), he even feels shame for his word choice at some moments, granted that only because saying “bitch” got him in trouble and he would rather avoid that type of scandal ever again or engage in sexism. He cares for Dipper Pines to the point where he doesn’t want to give up on the omega even if it has become troublesome, and Bill hates to recognize that this is probably what his cousin describes as:

“True mates” William says, spinning in the chair of Bill’s desk. “Older generations used to believe that people were destined and something like soul mates”

“That’s not a very valid concept William, actually its even toxic if you really think about it” Bill argues, he’s currently writing a list on his laptop, because he does lists and bullet points when he’s scheming, and right now he’s figuring out how the hell will he get back with Dipper and convince him to try _whatever this is_. 

William pushes, though, convinced that his guess is the right answer to all the problems. “Why else would you be so into him? You don’t even know him that long.”

“I know him enough”

“Yeah, because two months are enough to get you this emotionally invested” 

Bill only typed louder in his laptop. He was unable to concentrate in both writing down and arguing with his best friend, but he was acting like he could multitask while typing down letter combinations like “ushjefojj” and pretending he wasn’t as interested in this conversation as William. “Some people just… hit hard I guess” he tries to explain.

“What do you even like about him? Maybe you are… and don’t get angry at me” Will warns “Just interested because he keeps rejecting you”

“Since when am I a masochist?” Bill teases, smiling slightly.

“Well, you’re sort of a sadist, and can’t really tolerate not getting your way”

“Just yesterday you were saying how great it was to fight for what I wanted and now you claim that seems dishonest” the blond argues, and Bill almost feels like he’s experimenting a déjà vu when he says “I’m always serious”

At that, William snorts one of his loudest laughs “You play people” he claims.

However, that’s false. William always defended Bill’s reputation as a heartbreaker, but Will also did it more out of loyalty and believing Bill is a good person, than the fact that he actually thought Bill didn’t have fuckboy attitudes. 

The older Cipher shrugs, and defends himself without real bite in his words. “When I’m not serious, I think I make it pretty clear.”

“How clear did you make it with Dipper Pines, hm? That you were serious?” 

Bill falls silent, but he’s not embarrassed as he realizes that as much as he always thought he was perfect at reading social cues, maybe he was also a bit unable to correctly approach a possible mate and make it clear that he wanted that: to mate. 

However, he did tell Dipper at the beginning that he found him beautiful and interesting, and he wanted to be more than friends but was fine with trying that if it was the only thing Dipper could offer right then. So yeah, he should have said he wanted to date him and maybe they wouldn’t have been unofficially courting all this time nor Dipper would have developed the insecurities on their relationship that he liked to deny, but Bill really felt like he had being obvious about his intentions.

Finally, he writes in his list of “How to understand Dipper Pines and seduce him completely”, something along the lines of “1. Dipper is scared of the word courting, yet he’s also insecure about dating me because I didn’t _‘properly’ court_ him before.”

“Ok” he says out loud “Point taken. But then I told him if he wanted us to court and he said he didn’t, and then I asked to try dating and he refused once again, claiming he was not looking for a mate”.

“What is so scary about mating anyways?” William rolls his eyes. He can be just as smart and mean as Bill is, but Will’s own fascination was more related to the concept of love than bones and bodies, so he was particularly involved in Bill’s entire love crisis. “If he’s not looking for a mate is because he either enjoys being single, or he is scared of what courting would mean”

As much as Bill would hate for the first option to be real, which it is unfortunately realistic, he knows that Dipper is most likely refusing his advances because of the second one. He gets to that conclusion because since his second “fight” with Dipper, he has been repeating to himself and even writing down all the words Dipper told him. He couldn’t understand them the moment they harshly hit his ears the first time, but he knew to have everything on the table when elaborating a plan, and suddenly the “ _what I’m asking for means trust_ ” made absolutely more sense.

He writes down “2.In Dipper’s opinion our unnamed relationship lacked of trust, which is why it was not going to work”

Before Bill dares open his mouth to wonder out loud what was “trust” supposed to mean, because excuse him but being a private person didn’t necessarily mean that he couldn’t trust Dipper; William was asking more questions, his voice coming out as fast as his train of thought.

He repeated “He is complicated, and he is scared, and you find in yourself the will to go after him anyway. Are you really that in love?” but before he can get an answer, Will goes on “Because if you are only obsessing ‘cause he rejected you, then you trying so hard is going to hurt the moment he gives in and you get bored”

“I’m not getting bored” Bill repeated for one last time, being so honest that the certainty of it all surprises even himself “Dipper is fun to be around, just like you. He’s the smartest guy I know besides us, and he is smarter than us in many topics I can just scrap the surface of. He doesn’t think I’m a weirdo because of my fascination on the commonly interpreted as disgusting parts of nature, and he shares the interest I have both in how minds work and how metahumans do in fictional comics.”

“Dipper Pines catches my interest in an intellectual level and an instinctual one. When I feel like I’m bored of the monotony of life and in search for something exciting, he’s already talking about wanting to go out and investigate this weird forest in a place in the middle of nowhere he calls Gravity Falls. When homework gets heavy and tiring, his scent is the most calming thing I’ve ever smelt, and seeing him in danger provokes out of me a sense of worry I have never felt beyond survival instinct or when it came to you who are my best friend. The guy is such an inspiring little thing that I have found myself researching the omega rights movement to impress him and learn about something he’s genuinely passionate about, I even searched about twins and bothered to learn Thermodynamics so I could understand one of his papers.”

“I’m not in love” Bill finally finishes “But I know that I will be, and that is unexpectedly terrifying” 

William can’t process half of what Bill has said because, yeah, Dipper Pines definitely hit him hard, and also because Will has never heard his cousin admitting out loud something was scary to him. 

Last time they were together and Will had to assist Bill as the older boy was breaking down and choking himself to death with sugary snacks, he saw Bill in one of the few crisis he has ever had, and he found him willing to be held and cared for, too tired to put a façade before William entered the room. Now, it’s the first time Bill has ever stopped making a riddle out of his feelings, and he had chosen to do something as frightening as admitting to be frightened. 

Bill says nothing else and types “3. Maybe Dipper is scared of falling in love with me”

“What is so scary about love?” Will finally asks, his chair was suddenly still, and he looked at Bill with a certain tenderness in his blue eyes that appeared almost fraternal. “Isn’t something so amazing supposed to feel, well, amazing?” he whispers.

His cousin only sighs, not wanting to get into the clutter inside his head. “Once you fall in love, it’s not only you who you care about. You have the power to make another person happy or miserable, and there’s a 50/50 chance that even if you don’t mean for it to happen, you will both end up miserable. I do not want to go through that or make _him_ go through it” he tries to summarize. 

Not very pleased with the shortness of the answer, but knowing well that he was not going to get anything else from Bill, William only says. “If you are so afraid, why are you trying?”

That’s exactly the kind of questioning Bill doesn’t really want to reflect on. He shrugs once again and looks at his list, but the sudden quietness that fills the room doesn’t help his concentration at all. At the end, he just answers: “Before, I decided to not try and I was already miserable. Then, I decided to not give up so I could be rejected and then I would have an actual reason to be miserable and get over it…”

“He rejected you already”

“Yes but now I can’t get over it.” Bill closes his eyes and breathes in shakily, he has to suppress his scent before it gives away how overwhelmed he is. The truth is that he doesn’t want to get over Dipper and he wants to get him as a boyfriend and as a mate. The truth is also that he still has his moments of clarity and then he realizes he doesn’t want to put himself in the line to be hurt and played with and used. So there’s this constant battle inside of him, and Bill can’t stand the idea of doing nothing to fix this until he chooses one side. 

He’s also aware of one reason why being rejected has not worked yet. “Dipper didn’t cut me off because he could not stand me or he did not have feelings for me.” Bill explained “I usually respect his rules and his space or else it would be counterproductive, but this feels like he is afraid of something and leaving me because of that fear, not because he really wants to leave me.” 

William doesn’t tell Bill than then both him and Dipper are in the same crossroad, both terrified of being in love with each other yet terrified of cutting ties with the other. It sounded like something easy to fix by just locking them in the same room with a therapist and getting them to confess and express their feelings, however Will was realizing that besides their nerdy hobbies, they also seemed to share the same preference to keep quiet and deal with things alone. 

He decided to be supportive instead of launching on a big monologue that would be useless, because Bill wouldn’t change his habits until he realized it himself. “So, what are you going to do to get him back?”

Bill just stares at his computer screen, rereading the three sentences. 

“He described our relationship as superficial, and got angry at me because I wasn’t sharing details about my personal life with him” he confessed, and then decided to argue his case “Although, as I see it, he doesn’t need to know every single thing about me. Actually, that would only make our relationship a bit boring” 

“And would make you look like a jerk as well, because you are a jerk”

“Yes, that too.” Bill admitted, even if it was hard for him to accept that what he did sometimes qualified as wrong in most people’s judgment. “It’s already hard to win him over, it could be twice as hard once he realizes the type of person I allegedly am.”

“Not allegedly” Will laughs “You have been mean and cocky and an asshole. And to this day you can still be if you put your mind to it”

The blonde only narrows his eyes at him, with annoyance dancing in his golden irises. 

Before he could state that William wasn’t being particularly helpful, Will decided to spare him and play actual love guru. “You know, maybe it would be easier if you tried putting yourself in his place”

“I already did” Bill claims, because he has been trying to analyze Dipper Pines since he got the door slammed at his face. 

“No, you didn’t. And you see what you did there? You get all defensive whenever someone barely hints that you have made a mistake or should reflect on what you have done.” William span his chair one more time and then stopped the chair with his feet hard on the carpet. He looked up from his barefoot and straight into his cousin’s eyes. “I asked if you really put yourself on his place. I’m sure you tried to guess what he felt like but I’m just as sure that you didn’t try thinking what you would really feel like if he was doing this to you”

“Doing what to me?” Bill pressed, annoyed at being called out.

“Dipper Pines comes over. You have never seen him before but he is hot and confident and saves your ass from a fight you already have under control. He’s everywhere after that, staring at you in the cafeteria, approaching you in the library and walking you home. It goes on for two months, you two talk about anything and everything, favorite ice cream flavor and how Starbucks offers employment discounts. He met me and sat with us in the cafeteria a few times. He calls you pretty pet names and compliments your brain and your beauty.” While William describes the entire situation, his smile grows mischievous, as if he was narrating a tale completely invested. “Then one day you two bump into his ex-girlfriend. She’s gorgeous and makes it clear she’s just as smart as you if not more. She also sends greetings to Mabel, who Dipper has always hidden from you. Then she tells you how Dipper once called her a narcissistic psychopath, and it rubs you the wrong way but you say nothing. On the way home, he offers you no further explanation. How would you feel?”

Bill wants to purposely miss the point just to show William that it wasn’t this easy to solve. But before he even bothers, Will insists and makes it as clear as he can:

“Isn’t it weird how he has been after you for so long yet you, at the end, know nothing about him? Why did he call her a narcissistic psychopath and why would you be ok with it when those words are very hurtful in your opinion? Maybe he’s a prejudiced person. Or maybe it could be easy to explain if he even tried to. But he doesn’t try, Dipper doesn’t try because maybe he doesn’t find you as important as you thought you were for him.” Will snaps, almost breathless “By the way, his ex-girlfriend is better than you not only because she’s smart and rich, but she was important enough to meet Mabel. His best friend and twin sister. Now don’t play dumb with me and don’t tell me his wouldn’t make you doubt Dipper’s intentions.”

Soon the only sound in the room is the one made by the tabs of the laptop while Bill tries to write down three more things. The first one is to introduce Dipper to William, the second one says “DON’T BE ON DEFENSE” and the third consists of “DON’T ADMIT TO WILLIAM HE WAS RIGHT AND YOU WERE AN EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED IDIOT AT THE END”

His pride is what stops Bill from admitting he had been wrong and unable to see the problem, but the fact that William was his closest friend and had, just now, given solution to his biggest query, makes him turn his laptop around and increase the font size of his last point, enough that Will can read it.

Will only smirks, and while Bill saves the document, the omega finally says “It would be a pleasure to meet him.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is finally over, God bless! I was excited seeing the comments I got on the last chapter so I had to hurry and finish uploading asap. Lots of love, hope y'all like this ending.
> 
> I would have written smut buuuut it felt out of place with the entire plot. Maybe at some point I will get myself to write about Will because I wanted to turn this into a series, and maybe then we will explore a very awkward sexual relationship between my characters but we will see. Well, enjoy!
> 
> PD: I made some pop culture references because I don't know how to create normal conversations.

It takes 4 dodged phone calls and a string of messages that qualify as spam, for Dipper to accept meeting up with Bill. Usually he would just approach the younger Pines if Dipper was ignoring him, but after their relationship turned tense Bill didn’t find it in himself to risk scaring Dipper off. Instead of that, he chose to call and risked humiliating himself with no response, but it seemed to be the right choice because at least Dipper never blocked him and now he was waiting with William on another café in campus, a slightly more expensive yet private place.

Currently, Will and Bill were sitting in a corner inside while casually fighting over the menu. William insisted on ordering tea to calm his nerves, and Bill refused pointing out that ordering before your guest arrived would be terrible manners, at which Will only complained loudly, as if threatening to make a scandal only to get away with his ways. They were already bickering in a hushed voice when Dipper arrived.

Quite honestly, Dipper looked like shit. To William, at least. Of course he knew Dipper Pines because of how many times he had seen his picture on Bill’s phone, and because Will knew absolutely everybody at the science faculty; but his eyes travelled the guy with much more detail this time, and he concluded that this was not the best Dipper has ever looked.

William won’t claim the other omega is not nice to the eye, as that would be lying and Will could get a very defensive Bill if he said something remotely negative out loud. What he means is that Dipper Pines always looks fresh and youthful, but today he walks himself around and instead of drawing Will’s eyes to him, Dipper blends into the background perfectly. His enchanting presence only appears dull, and William wonders why.

“You did tell him that you were introducing us, didn’t you” he whispers to Bill, who stared completely in daze at the subject of his problems. If Bill noticed how dead Dipper looked in comparison to his usual self, it apparently was not enough to make him unattractive in Bill’s eyes.

Bill didn’t have to look away, as he followed Dipper who was now looking around to find them. He just said “No, it was a surprise”

William sighs and wants to bang his head against the table. Dipper Pines is heartbroken and probably thinks he is going to meet up with Bill and end up fighting all over again, he must have woken up and not even bothered taking a shower, was wearing a red hoddie with a face that screamed he hasn’t sleep in four days. Will doesn’t want to start imagining how nervous he would get if he met his boyfriend’s family without a single heads up and completely unprepared. 

As Dipper’s stare lands on them, he straight up stops walking. William tries to smile harmlessly but he can absolutely sense his cousin’s expression is more dangerous than anything, as if he was ready to eat Dipper Pines alive after such a long period of starvation. Will kicks him under the table, and Dipper looks at the floor as if processing the entire thing before taking a deep breath and finally approaching them.

Up close is nothing better than in the distance. If anything, William is convinced that Dipper Pines is charming and good looking but not model like stunning as Bill tended to describe. Then again, appearances were only subjective. “Hey” Bill gets up, without even realizing how eager he looks “We were waiting for you, pine tree”

William cringes. He expects Dipper Pines to be an anxious mess of an omega and get completely nervous, as much as his scent was admitting he was. Instead, Dipper is really controlled when he smiles at them as if completely in charge and sure of himself, and as fast as the bitterness in his smell spiked, it disappeared. 

His confidence impressed William, mostly because William himself was another omega with a very charming personality but whose scent could also tell easily on his emotions. To him, being able to look so comfortable and collected while being an over thinker, was an admirable quality. 

Will’s voice appeared soft as he spoke, his own smile never disappearing. “I’m so excited to finally meet you, and thank God you accepted to come today, considering this right here is absolutely insufferable” he pointed at Bill, rolling his eyes.

If he wanted to get on Dipper’s good side (which he wanted because Dipper was really important for his cousin and if they got along the sooner, the better), he had to at least prove that he was by his side right now, and that Dipper didn’t have to bother with winning him over, because Will was just as delighted with meeting him as he imagined Dipper was.

Dipper’s ears got red in a sweet gesture of shyness, very unfamiliar on him and the only evidence of his nervousness. It made of Bill such a soft idiot that he was already cocking his head to the side with heart eyes, staring. 

The Cipher omega found his own cheeks growing hot easily, and showing a prominent blush that extended past his neck because of how pale his skin was. He felt comfortable with Dipper, almost like some sort of connected strangers. Dipper smiled kindly and all his face lighted up, taking back the hours of stress previously reflected on the skin and the eyes.

“Bill talks so much about you, it’s my pleasure to meet you as well.”

“Well, for all the talking Bill does, he seems very quiet right now” William teased, poking Bill’s neck with his finger to bring him back to earth and being a functional adult. Bill kept on looking shamelessly at Dipper, and only shrugged.

He seemed at ease at the fact that Dipper and him were sharing the same space without fighting already, as if they were back to the peaceful normality of their flirting non official whatever. “I thought you two could talk and I could just admire the view”

“You’re fucking corny” William complained, opening the menu to find something else to order with his tea. The moment his hand takes the cardboard, Dipper’s mouth falls open and his eyes sparkle in astonishment.

If even possible, his smile widens. “That’s beautiful” he says, looking at the ring William has on.

The omega slams the menu down and moves his hand forward in front of Dipper’s eyes, both men stare only at the sapphire ring flanked with small diamonds, one of those obnoxious things William loved to wear absolutely everywhere. “I know, right? It was my mother’s” he explains, without really mentioning how it became his the moment he presented and his mother gave her engagement ring to him, as if saying that he was now obliged to marry wealthy into whoever they chose for him, because that’s an omega’s purpose when they already have an alpha heir.

But with no sob stories to tell, the excitement on Dipper’s eyes never wears off. “It’s literally the same one that Michelle Yeoh wore in the premiere of-”

“Crazy Rich Asians!” Will interrupted, mind blown by the coincidence. “I love that movie!”

“Really?” Bill wonders, because he only watches murder mystery or depressive dramatic love stories.

“Fuck yeah, her character wore it as well and you know, hers was a beautiful emerald. My sister took me to see the movie, it was great and in person this one looks so, so perfect” Dipper goes on, he’s completely fascinated by the relation with the movie more than the undeniable value of the stone. 

William wiggles his hand and the sapphire sparkles softly against the light, it leaves them both breathless for a second. “When I saw how they used it for the proposal I was so excited, it’s usually like… we see something super cool in the movies and we want to imitate it, while I already had this one. Literally wore it to the cinema” 

“I’ll buy you the green one” Bill points out, grinning at Dipper.

Dipper finally seems to be completely in his element now. He rolls his eyes playfully, “Rich people are actually crazy” he says, but his smile stays there. 

After they order their food, Dipper and William praise Rachel’s dress in the movie for one minute, they agree at the crying in the wedding scene to which Bill only says “Then I should see it” because for some weird reason he loves crying in movies, and soon they are discussing Constance Wu’s character on Hustlers, they suddenly switch to strippers and Jennifer Lopez’s performance at the Super Bowl, and finally they start talking about their top three favorite films of each genre because, as stated before, Bill Cipher loves doing lists.

They are all talking nonstop in a weird dynamic where William finds himself teaming up with Bill to make Dipper Pines laugh. And even if he is obviously not as amazed by Dipper as his cousin is, Will feels like Dipper is one of those people so undeniably nice that you want to keep them as happy and satisfied as possible as long as they keep a bright smile on their lips. For a second Will understands why Bill might be scared. 

Dipper then talks about this Gravity Falls place that Bill had mentioned before, and Dipper tells the legends about the place with an enchanting voice that keeps William genuinely interested. "I used to spend my summers over there every year” he explains, completely trapped in his own tales. 

“Oh, maybe you could bring us with you one day” William pleads, probably too ahead of himself. He notices how Dipper drifts his glance towards Bill for a second, and then that’s gone too. Looking back at Will, he swallows a bite from his sandwich before saying “Fuck, sure. We don’t really go there often anymore because my grunkles are literally sailing the entire world, but I was planning on asking to go for my birthday.” 

The conversation doesn’t die down until two hours later, when the sun is almost down completely and the outside has gotten a deep blue color, with just the tiniest tone of purple washed over. The sunset had just ended. 

Outside of the restaurant, after splitting the bill even though both Ciphers insisted on inviting, Will says his goodbye hugging Dipper too tight. He’s partially too excited and thankful for the successful meal, and also a bit afraid that this would be the first and last time he would see Dipper at all, in case he decided this still was not enough and dumped his cousin. 

He waved goodbye before getting on his also over the top car and drove away fast enough, because Will hated driving at night and he didn’t live inside campus, also like Bill who resided close enough but in his own apartment. Dipper stares as the figure gets smaller and smaller in the distance with every second, he doesn’t feel like looking at Bill and ruining the evening.

Eventually, as Bill says “Thanks for coming” with a big smile, Dipper finds himself forced to confess. 

But first, he will ease into it, because it would be too much of a jerk move to just say “This is not enough, still too complicated, I’m sorry but my point stands.”

He nods, instead. “William was nice” Dipper says, feeling stupid for his observation and this try of small talk. 

“Yeah, he is my best friend, you know? I mean, besides being the only family member I find tolerable” Bill explains, hands on his pockets as they walk towards Dipper’s apartment. “He is also the only friend I have at the moment.”

That seems to surprise Dipper a little bit, because from their meeting with Pyronica, he gathered that Bill had friends outside from campus, or imagined that like anybody else he would make friends inside. Dipper has his own group of friends besides his sister, and they are all distributed in both classes from his English degree, and his specifically scientific nerd’s crew. 

Bill went on “We are studying the same thing, as well, so we practically share all of our classes.” He says as if that would explain why no other friends are necessary “And when we do not or he is busy, I never find myself craving for more tiring social interaction.”

“So you are a loner” Dipper smiles, without being able to hold back. 

He likes learning about Bill, and it hurts to know he had been kept from learning all of this before, when Bill had had him in the dark about his life.

“I wouldn’t call it loneliness considering I’m always accompanied by myself. I believe I can be at least an amusing type of company” he teases.

Dipper tries to shrug, but his scent is sweet and welcoming, and he is enjoying Bill’s presence more than he wants to admit. They have not talked with each other for so long, and falling back into routine is easy even if only for a few seconds. 

Wanting to shake those cozy feelings off, Dipper tries to stop beating around the bush. “Why did you introduce me to him? After refusing for so long…”

“Well, as stated before, he’s my only friend, Pine tree.” Bill smiles his own type of charming smile, the one that’s both playful, yet makes you weak on the knees. “I didn’t want you to steal him from me, like it seems you have done already.”

Dipper knows it is all light hearted, but that won’t leave Bill off the hook. Dipper feels like getting answers tonight. “You’re lying.”

“Maybe.” Bill sighs “I felt like it would be too rushed on my part.”

“I thought you said you were serious about me” The omega accused, no real bite in his words, just doubt and a bit of hurt somewhere deep. 

Bill does nothing but shake his head side to side, as if that kind of sign of negation were enough. The blond then forces an actual explanation out, already feeling the tension that may arise between the two.

“I was serious about you, I still am. I literally asked you out the other day, asked if you would like it if I courted you and all that jazz. You said no, and that was exactly the reason why I didn’t want you and William meeting and hitting it off perfectly. You two are too important to me, and losing one would already feel too…” he tries searching for a word that is not as emotional “Painful” he settles, the word acidic in his tongue and still not right enough. “Without the extra trouble that comes with having to explain that to a third party”

“You didn’t want us getting attached?”

“Wouldn’t you agree that it could be troublesome? You had rejected me already, I couldn’t be so sure and assume that you would be just permanent in my life” 

At that, Dipper wanted to argue. He wants to say that people can be scared but they can’t just keep themselves to themselves because they are also afraid of sharing shit with someone who will eventually leave them anyway. He also wants to say that he hasn’t felt like leaving Bill would ever be an option or something he wished for, that once their lives had gotten all tangled, he doesn’t know if it would be right for them to part their own ways. He felt offended about the statement for some reason, which was ironic considering he was just about to cut Bill permanently off his life and prove to him that they had been in fact only temporary.

Only because of that, all those words die inside his mouth before he can even start ranting, and Dipper chooses to agree falsely, to pretend that he gets it. “It sorts of makes sense” he says.

“But now I realized I worried over nothing” Bill clarifies, bright smile warmly on his face, and his scent turning wonderful because of the excitement. Bill allows it. The smell makes Dipper feel both touched and heartbroken. “I apologize because lately we have only been fighting, when I should be making you happy instead.”

Dipper stays silent and recognizes the oh-so similar butterflies in his stomach. He wants to throw up and he doesn’t really know if it’s because of his own excitement or his guilt over being a hypocrite. 

“I think we got too involved too quickly and I didn’t know how to act on that.” Bill continued “But now, if we formally start to court or date, I know I can actually give you everything that you want. I wouldn’t bother about feeling _too much_ again.”

“I can’t do that” Dipper finally says, his own scent unable to conceal the sadness that also reflects on his voice. “This was nice, yeah, and thank you for it. But we weren’t even dating and we were already fighting without being able to have a conversation like adults and sort things out”

“We are having a conversation and sorting things out”

“Almost an entire month later and after we had already cried a ton more than we should” Dipper argues, when he is nervous he throws his hands around as if explanations came more from his body language than his own sentences. “I like you but sometimes liking someone is not enough to date them, and this is not going to work”

This time again, Dipper seems like a wounded cat in an alley, wanting to survive so bad that if Bill does the wrong move and the fluffy thing reads his intentions wrongly, he will just run away. Bill Cipher finds himself trying to appropriately remember how to talk, before he spirals into heartbreak and panic. 

He can’t be panicking. “You are already breaking things off without giving us a try”

“And you are not trying, Bill.” Dipper points out, displeased. “I had to literally beg you, fight you and give you the silent treatment for you to actually try to understand what was I asking for” 

“You are also not really trying, Dipper” Bill defends himself, because if he has to admit he is a mess, then Dipper will also have to see that he is not the most functional being either. Dipper doesn’t fight the accusation, he only bites his lip accepting that his behavior has not been the best lately either, and that now he was in fact giving up. 

“Then this is never going to work” he answers, convinced that this choice is better in the long term.

They are already at Dipper’s apartment complex, and usually Bill would walk him to the door of his room, but the tension between them has not eased, and the beta knows that will only make things more awkward. 

Before he lets Dipper’s stubbornness seal their destiny as absolutely _nothing_ , he tries. He finds himself doing something so humiliating to his existence as it is to clasp Dipper’s hand between his, and uncover his sour scent that had twisted into something full of worry and fear. 

It’s almost as if his instincts had the last word and could barely say “Don’t leave me”. Dipper widens his eyes a little, because Bill never lets anybody see him like this, so naked and exposed. 

“We will make it work” he promises, there’s an edge in his words that border desperation. “Even if it means me apologizing for things I do not understand, or having to tell William absolutely everything until he beats some sense to me. If it means being extra patient with you and admitting when I fuck up or can’t put myself in your shoes, then be it. I don’t care what it takes or how long we have to be mad at each other after every fight, I do not care as long as you take me back when I finally apologize. Even if it becomes hard, we can keep trying, we can make it work and this right now is only a bump in the road. Dipper, please.”

But Dipper has already come to a decision, so he pushes and asks. “Wouldn’t that be exhausting?” and then he’s yanking his hand away and turning back, feeling like a jerk and ready to lock himself up in his room and cry and regret for the rest of the year that he rejected Bill Cipher in the name of logic.

Bill stands there hopeless. 

He has turned into the pathetic thing that he told himself he would not allow Dipper Pines to create, and he is also tonight the same man that he feared to become, the same guy who wore his heart in his sleeve ready to be played and enjoying that at least Dipper spared him a glance. He became love deprived in the sense that the beta realized he would do absolutely everything Dipper asked him to do, if it meant to have another chance. But as the chance vanishes upstairs, he doesn’t know how to react.

He wonders for a minute if he would rather go back to that, the ephemeral desperate state he was in, or the depressing lonely guy who had to get over it but kept his pride and individuality to some extent. It’s very telling that even if he knows which one is the healthiest option, he doesn’t wish for it.

The only thing he does, is turn around and start walking home. Bill is ready to watch Atonement until the early morning, and cry over heartbreak again. However, he doesn’t need the extra stimulus. 

As Bill walks away, he finds himself already crying. 

\---

The following week Bill feels like he is living an out of body experience. He copies down what the professors explain during classes, and he leaves college early on a Tuesday to attend one of his father’s meetings, where he forces himself to play gentleman once again, and smiles and shakes hands almost in automatic. After that, he doesn’t know when Wednesday becomes Thursday, and he is not even enjoying his sad films anymore. Bill is not thinking about Dipper Pines, but he is also unable to think about anything else. He sees the days passing by and can’t sleep when time is due. His appetite reduces and suddenly he is eating at 4pm one day and 3am the following.

Everything is weird because dealing with heartbreak is weird. It’s a strange experience that he had not yet experienced in this level. William doesn’t even ask about it, he just guesses what went down and tries to be supportive by chatting about normal everyday life things. 

Bill can’t endure it. He looks at Will’s ring and a part of his brain that probably hates seeing him happy decides to picture an emerald ring in Dipper’s hand, like the ones people give when they have been courting for a full year. Bill Cipher is a ridiculous man who needs to sit down and cry once again, because that would be way better that whatever he is doing right now and he likes to call “dealing with it”.

He is not dealing with it right, that’s for sure. Locked inside his room on a Saturday, after encouraging William to go on a date only to distract him from whatever mess Bill had become, he decides that he will try being a crybaby all over again rather than going through this blank state any longer. 

Bill puts on a movie that never fails to hurt him, but he is too out of it and when the credits roll, he just stares with his eyes dry and his scent bitter. Later that day, he opens his laptop and goes over his previous plan, reads it again calling himself an idiot out loud, yet it does nothing. Bill decides to take a shower or else he won’t find it in himself to move out of his bed later, and naked and wet, he stares at himself in the mirror and insults the piteous figure that stares back. 

When that also doesn’t cause a reaction, he gets back into his room and puts on some joggers, then lays on his bed knowing well that he will wet it all over and will have to dry it later with his hair dryer or else he will freeze while sleeping and probably catch a cold. The beta takes his laptop and rests it on top of his stomach, and opens a new word page and writes down “Reasons why Dipper Pines left me”, to kill time.

1\. He thinks we won’t work because we took too long to reconcile after our big fights.  
2\. Dipper is too scared of being in love with me because he doesn’t trust me at all and finds it exhausting to explain to me why I am annoying or fucking things up.  
3\. A relationship with Dipper is too scary for both of us to act upon our feelings.  
4\. He is a coward.  
5\. I miss Dipper Pines and I can’t believe I miss him this much. I miss him. Truly.  
6\. Why did he have to enter my life, make me doubt absolutely everything, and then leave?  
7\. I didn’t even get to kiss him and I’m going to die a painful agonizing death unable to achieve my life purpose: kissing Dipper Pines  
8\. I literally feel like I lost a fucking limb. I miss him.

Without time to even feel ridiculous, Bill kept on typing nonsensical sentences that put all the feelings with no name in at least a few words that described them well enough. He saw his list that soon was not a list anymore, growing and growing until he was already on number 29, and realizing that he would need a very angry Dipper Pines insulting him and telling him to fuck off, for him to actually accept to fuck off.

That being said, Bill cares for Dipper too much to be stalking him and pressuring him until he blows him off. It only shows that this “getting over it” business was going to be very hard for him to accept, but he is Bill Cipher and will be able to eventually get over Dipper. So he created another plan called “How to get over Dipper Pines”, and it goes like this:

1\. I don’t want to get over Dipper Pines.

Bill closes his eyes and lets out a deep shaky breath. His cheeks have been damp for a while and considering he still feels wretched, a small victory is that he at least is letting himself go and cry, acting like a person once again.

Someone knocks on his door. Bill is relieved that he has finally cried again and his feelings were not stock inside of him, proving William wrong and being a big fuck you to Will’s recommendation about getting a therapist. Bill opens the door with a watery smile and ready to say “Hey, look who is not a robot anymore?”

He wants to go back to being a robot and look at least put together the moment he sees that the person on the other side is no other than Dipper Pines looking nervous and not like the complete wreck that Bill is. They stare at each other in silence, and Dipper doesn’t comment on the red eyes or the running nose, but Bill doesn’t try to clean his tears either, just pretends like they are not big deal.

He even rests his body against the door frame and crosses his arms over his chest, before saying “What are you doing here?” 

Dipper doesn’t act unaffected anymore, he is distressed and both his scent and his face give it away. If William were to walk by the scene, the powerful smell of two people hurting all over would make him run away. 

The omega leaves the inside of his cheek alone after biting on it for too long, and as he talks, Bill can see the fangs shining big between his lips. “I’m sorry”

“Is that you talking? Or the pre heat?” he guesses, because the fangs were a clear sign of what was soon coming, and he was sure it was not the everyday kind of hunger. 

Dipper’s ears for once didn’t blush, and he completely ignored the connotations in the question. “It’s me” he clarifies, eyes fixed on Bill’s without any doubt “I’m really sorry”

Bill only sighs and moves aside to let the other in. When he sees that Dipper doesn’t move, Bill has to tell him “Are you coming in...? or…?” to get the younger to finally enter the room and close the door, almost a little bit shocked at the fact that he wasn’t facing straight rejection.

He knew he had a lot to say, so he didn’t even sit before he started saying what was eating him alive. And if after he confessed, his explanations weren’t enough, he would understand to leave Bill alone and their _thing_ buried and over forever. 

“I’m here to apologize because I was scared. And it’s not enough of a reason, I know that, but I was afraid of what being in love with you would mean…, mostly because the most time we spent together, the surer I was that falling in love with you would happen.” 

Bill sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him. He closed his laptop and put it aside. Bill listened intently with a penetrating gaze, trying to read the omega's intentions or how honest he was being, but Bill's body stayed relaxed with his hands on each side and his arms resting on the bed, bearing his weight. He was almost laying down, but being able to stare at him completely. 

Because he notices how Dipper was not talking further, Bill decided to ask what he really wanted to know. “What were you scared about?”

The question seemed to pain Dipper, or at least make him embarrassed, because his sweet cocoa was bitter as well. “This is going to sound ridiculous” and Bill swallows his words before he says something reassuring like how nothing will ever be ridiculous if it comes out of Dipper’s mouth. “It was all because of our first fight”

Only to annoy him, Bill corrected: “Disagreement”

“Yeah, well” Dipper continues, breaking their eye contact. He looked younger and vulnerable that way. “Not only was I upset over Pyronica knowing your entire family and fitting so well in your lifestyle as a heir or whatever, or the fact that you called her a bitch when that is so fucking insensitive and sexist. I also felt like… like I was jealous of her, of how much she knew about you and how superior she seemed.”

“Firstly, she met my family because she was a childhood friend and her family was a supplier to my mother’s company, so they were in every single Cipher party I am able to recall.” Bill finally, finally opens up. Finding the trip to memory lane a little bit bothersome. “She has a lot of money and the pressure of being her parent’s daughter, so yeah she’s smart and used to material stuff and etiquette or any of that.”

After that, Bill was rolling his eyes with irritation. He despised talking about the following thing in particular, and couldn’t notice how his obvious annoyance was making Dipper uneasy, believing it was directed at him. 

The beta continues, tired. “I am not particularly proud of the word I chose when we fought and I called her names, but at the moment I was very angry and she was being everything else I crudely said: a clingy person ignoring the brain they could be using.” He didn’t look regretful at all “William got invited to prom by an alpha at the time, he has always had a thing for them and wasn’t particularly smart when it came to choosing suitors. I took Pyronica like we were supposed to. She wanted to dance all night and take pictures and do all of that romantic stuff that I understand is not stupid, but Will was in danger and I could smell his typical warning scent even with all the smoke and the amount of people, so he was my priority.”

“Dipper, I grew up used to that smell, I knew William and could recognize him in a crowd every single time, even easier if it came down to him being endangered. I wanted to go and look for him only to make sure he was fine, Pyronica just decided in that moment that she couldn’t let her partner do something as simple as going to the bathroom because this was her night and everything had to be perfect. I explained what my gut feeling was telling me about and she said Will was old enough to take care of himself, so I decided to fuck off and walked away before she started yelling at me about being an egotistical fuck in the middle of the dance floor.”

“You see, I do not enjoy scandals or scenes, much less if they mean trouble. I didn’t yell back but I did insult her, then I found out what was happening to William, and I decided that violence was the best way to put an end to it, so I got in trouble and I stopped being considered for the first place's prize.” Bill finishes, surprisingly unaffected by the memory. “I would do it all over again if it meant protecting my pack, and if that makes you want to run away...”

However, Dipper interrupted Bill before he could assume anything. “I don’t… It was not about that anyway, but I’m much more relaxed knowing the full context of it all” he explained, a bit shocked by the story, but remaining focused on the point he was trying to make. “She just..., she made me feel small for a minute, alright? And I’m not…, not used to feeling that way since before I presented…”

Bill raised his eyebrow a little taken back “You were made fun of? You? Dipper Pines, the young prodigy and almost a genius?” 

Dipper didn’t flush at the sarcastic compliment, nevertheless. He could only think about those negative feelings he had thought he would never experiment with such intensity again. “Kids don’t really care about how fast you learn to read on first grade or how shockingly interesting you find astronomy and general physics the moment you learn about the subject. They care about who is the fastest runner and the class clown and the coolest alpha who was the first to ever present. Besides, people always assumed that I would be the alpha and Mabel the omega because of how feminine she was and how ambitious I’ve always been. So it was easy to pick on me because I wasn’t growing up to be the alpha that I was supposed to be.” 

Bill whistled a bit, only to prove he was paying attention to the story. “That sucks” he whispers, trying to be empathetic.

In exchange he receives a nod, and soon Dipper continues “Then Mabel presented as an alpha and everyone stopped picking on me because hormones make every alpha a little bit violent during puberty, don’t they? And Mabel always had my back. Eventually I acquired this chocolaty thing all over the pines and the nature that used to be the main characteristic of my scent, and I had my first heat and came back to school being suddenly the main attraction for the good reasons.”

“It was- it wasn’t hard for me to figure out that being a science nerd by definition was only seen stupid by my peers when they weren’t trying to get inside my pants. I had a lot of suitors who thought I would make the pretty omega to lift their spirits and be their rock, and then my first boyfriend happened and he dumped me because for an omega I was _too much_ all the time, and for some reason… I just noticed he was an asshole and that I was too good for him anyways. And from then on, and I as grew more interested in omega rights and everything, I realized I was not only a super smart guy but a very valid omega as well and I never, ever, felt the same need to satisfy others or compete for their validation”

“And Pyronica triggered you” Bill pointed out, finally understanding that he had been right about Dipper being insecure over the depth and real purpose of their relationship, even if Dipper himself had denied it before because of how shocking the revelation was to him.

“Yeah” he nods, slightly ashamed by the truth. “I felt like the little kid again, I felt as if you weren’t taking me seriously”

“I was”

Dipper completely ignored the comment and went on explaining the complexity of his feelings. “I felt insecure both about what we were, what you expected from me, what I could give and what I was. I didn’t feel enough for you, and it had never happened to me before to think that… to feel like I couldn’t be enough. It became scary because, because I barely knew you from two months and I was already feeling like shit, and I wondered what I would feel like once I actually fell in love with you.” 

“Dipper…” Bill gave in, offering a hand towards his lover and unable to keep the indifferent act when he had been missing him like crazy. When he was also scared of how much power Dipper will hold over him once they start courting properly. 

He doesn’t need to say come here, but his eyes are gentle and caring, so Dipper lets himself be taken into a hug. The omega stands over his partner and feels the beta’s arms around his waist firmly. Still sitting down, Bill has his face rubbing against Dipper’s hoodie and inhaling the scent he has never been able to breathe in this close, and Dipper only bends down a little, with his hands caressing the blond strands of messy hair. He feels so relieved by the turn of events that his sight turns blurry and soon he’s fighting for his tears to not fall.

When they detangle a bit from each other, Bill looks up to find his soon to be boyfriend with wide eyes and wet cheeks. Pulling him by the waist, Dipper falls on top of Bill and both lay down on the bed, with Bill’s nose against his scent glands. 

“I’m so sorry” it’s all Dipper can say, hugging Bill and accepting the intimacy between them. 

Bill shrugged as if it was something stupid, “What made you change your mind?” he asks, breathing against his neck, turning the skin into goosebumps. 

Dipper still has much to say, his voice breaks because of the tears but he feels like confessing before reality hits them at any moment and it all turns out to be a dream. “I can’t stand being away from you, I can’t stand it.” 

Bill wants to argue and ask why did he reject him the previous week, but he senses in Dipper the need to talk without interruptions, and the will to share what has been troubling his mind. 

“You are the worst, Bill Cipher. You are an ambitious man ready to step on absolutely everyone and everything the moment they become useless” he accuses, and Bill only nods against his neck because even if he has never given Dipper reason to believe that, those are the facts. “But you are also the softest guy I have ever met. When you care, you care deeply, and all about you is in control but in your eyes I just can see how much you really feel for me. And I feel for you just the same.”

Taking this as the confirmation of his feelings being returned, Bill’s scent turned into something comforting and tasty, clean and fruity like it used to be. He opens his lips and lets an open mouthed kiss over Dipper’s pulse point, imagining how wonderful it will be to one day bite down on the sweet skin under it, and make Dipper his mate like he was always supposed to be.

Dipper scratches Bill’s hair delicately. “I was scared of feeling the same level of uneasiness, if not worse, once I had accepted your entire existence officially into my life. Once I were your omega for you to do absolutely anything with.” 

“I will never hurt you, pine tree” Bill whispers before leaving another kiss, one that leaves a loud sound behind that makes Dipper laugh slightly. 

“I figured” he said, and his voice was calmed and low, matching Bill’s whispers. He seemed to have accepted that this was real, and he wasn’t losing Bill anytime soon “I told you no both times, to courting and dating not because I didn’t want to. When I met you it surely wasn’t in my plans but once the first month had passed I was wondering when would you ask again, or try to kiss me” The tenderness in his voice made Bill melt a little “Then I felt afraid, not of you but of myself, of losing myself in you. And I guess I had been used to being in charge for too long, because I thought I would rather leave you than risk being hurt”

“I was just as afraid if not more” Bill confessed, and he feels how Dipper kisses his ear softly to encourage him to share more “I’m not the type to talk about my family or my childhood and it’s not something personal against you darling, it’s just that they are nothing to me. But you are right and I do hide too many of my emotions, I am also used to being completely in charge and I guess it only worked to worsen your perception of us.”

“What are _you_ so afraid off?” Dipper questions, pulling at Bill’s hair just a little bit to get the beta to look at him. In his face there’s the thing Dipper had been talking about for so long, the one that had been so hard for Bill to understand, he sees how Dipper _trusts_ him. 

In return, Bill has to trust him as well. And it does not mean that he will talk about the issues he knows he may have because of his parents, but it means that he will say the truth as best as he can. “I think I’m falling in love with you, Dipper Pines. And I used to think that beyond feeling as wonderful as this feels, being in love also meant being weak”

“Why?” 

“I’m not used to being in love. I’m not used to caring for another person with this type of intensity, and feeling either reassured by them or destroyed by their rejection” Dipper only kissed his forehead this time, as if apologizing once again. “Being in love with someone like you makes me want to be less of an asshole, only because I don’t want you to hate me or to be ashamed of loving me. I want to be your support system and you just make me so happy, I was scared that being with you would mean for me to bend to your will and change entirely to satisfy you. I didn’t want to be a jerk anymore, and in the place where I want to succeed in, you have to be one to survive.”

“That’s bullshit” Dipper says, but he is smiling. “I don’t think I could hate you, ever. And being less mean to others doesn’t mean have to be the embodiment of a saint. Bill, I like you for being you, I don’t mind your fake politeness or your rare kindness. I want you to maybe not leave people unemployed everywhere once you work your way up as a CEO, and I also won’t tolerate sexual harassment or discrimination in your workplace, neither any deal that is harmful for the environment…, but I don’t think that means you will stop being you, right?”

“Right” Bill agrees, a bit reassured if anything. He smiles back at Dipper and is no long before he is finally kissing him for the first time. 

Bill connects their lips moving forward to catch Dipper’s mouth between his fangs. Dipper has his own that have probably grown because of his heat approaching (which is something they will soon have to talk about), but their teeth don’t clash and Bill doesn’t go full eager brute on his boyfriend only because he is a mastermind of charm and seduction, and he refuses to make their first ever kiss something distasteful. Instead, he presses his lips and moves carefully, biting slowly when he feels like it.

With his free hand, Bill holds Dipper’s chin between his fingers, and opens his mouth delicately so Bill’s tongue can finally taste him. Dipper Pines parts his lips, letting the hand in his chin pull him, and accepts with a rush of excitement the wetness of their French kiss. Soon his hands grab at Bill’s nape and he scratches slightly with his nails over the skin.

They kiss for a long time that feels like only a few minutes. Bill concludes this is his perdition, as he understands that kissing Dipper is the type of thing that never gets boring. He could make out with Dipper and wouldn’t even notice how many hours have passed or how many days, and all he would focus on would be the softness of his mouth, the small pants that he makes and the sweet scent of chocolate and pine trees that sticks to their clothes and skin the more he rubs himself with Dipper.

After so long, neither of them feels like returning to their conversation about how individuality will persevere even while being in a relationship. That would be an interesting topic to tackle next time they have a heart-to-heart again, but for now is no stress or sadness. As they part from each other, scents mingled together, Bill only says “You changed your mind because of the heat, didn’t you?” because he is able to feel the pure sweetness in his partner’s scent right now.

Dipper smiles at the teasing, and he agrees to play this game. “Why? Are you mad?”

“Oh” Bill grins, his hand tracing circles on Dipper’s back, under his hoodie where the skin is naked and hot. “And I thought you had said you couldn’t stand being away from me”

“I can’t” Dipper says, biting his lip playfully. His fangs have not deflated, if anything they appeared sharper now, ready to tear skin and draw blood. Bill likes the whole idea of getting his skin pierced more than he initially thought he would. “Maybe it played into my final decision”

The deliciousness of his smell almost made Bill dizzy, as he asked himself if it was allowed for an omega to be this tempting before the heat even hit. “It’s nice to know that one can think with their cock and it will follow their heart’s desire”

Dipper only nods and catches Bill’s lips in another kiss, but soon he is distancing them again and Bill can only try and follow his mouth. 

“If you are complaining this much, maybe I should have asked another person to be my partner” he jokes. 

However, the word _partners_ reminds Bill of something terribly important they have forgotten. He loses his playful expression and only says “Is that what we are? Partners?” because this time, if they want to make this work and avoid any future fight, they have to work on giving their relationship a label before starting to work on the trust issues as well. They have to build something safe and stable.

It’s the cutest thing ever when Dipper’s ears finally regain that beautiful red color. His smile is almost timid this time, and it makes the blond’s heart do a summersault. “Yes, Bill Cipher, would you be my boyfriend?” he asks, all sincere and raw.

Bill knows that this is the thing he wants. Yes, he is not 100% sure that this will end perfectly and they will mate and have brunette pups with big blown golden eyes, but right now he is sure that he would rather give it a try and risk suffering afterwards than giving up already on a relationship that would only make him happy and whose absence would make him miserable.

When it came to courting Dipper Pines, he will take that fifty percent chance of success every single time. 

“Yes” he says, before kissing Dipper once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW, thank you so much for everyone who read this. It's the very first time I write something this long and with my best friends doing as my beta readers, so I was really excited lol.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for making it this far. Please leave kudos or comments, because they really make my day. Lots of love to everyone and please take care.


End file.
